Complicated Shadow
by Ellarose C
Summary: The US government's witness protection program has never had a witness die while under its protection. After innocent civilian Arthur Kirkland witnesses a murder ordered by the Vargas mob, will a hero's protection be enough to keep the record clean?
1. you think you're like iron and steel

_(Full Summary: The US government's witness protection program, WITSEC, has never had a witness die while under its protection. After innocent civilian Arthur Kirkland witnesses a murder ordered by the desperately ruthless Vargas mob, the United States government puts him under the care of US Marshal Alfred Jones. Will a hero's protection be enough to keep the record clean?)_

Prologue

Despite how much time Arthur Kirkland spent in New York City for his job and his social outings, it wasn't in Manhattan where his life changed forever. No, it was in the small park a few blocks from his New Jersey apartment that he cut through on his way home where he stumbled onto a crime scene.

It was any Thursday; he'd been forced to work late as seemingly all of his clients' agents called him from every different time zone, demanding an hour of his time each to complain about how their author was being treated. When Francis showed up to take him out to lunch and told him he would have to extend his deadline on his newest dime novel romance while mooning over his latest fling, Arthur knew it could only get worse from there.

He just never thought it'd get to murder so quickly.

The sky was dark and the streetlights were dim, which should have been a sign that Arthur would've been safer to go around the park along the well-lit roads with the friendly houses and shops, but it was cold and he was tired and he just wanted to get home. He walked slowly, shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, watching his feet. The sidewalk was icy; it probably saved his life. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been paying as close attention to his surroundings, and he might not have heard the panicked gasps or the low laugh until it was too late. As it was, he stopped walking just before emerging from the deep shadow cast by the lamppost on the other side of the long hedge on his side and looked up.

On the dead grass half-covered with last week's snow in front of him, a large Middle Eastern man was sprawled on the ground, scrambling backwards on his elbows, dragging his useless and very bloody legs and babbling in something Arabic-sounding. The low laugh belonged to the smaller man that still managed to loom over him, dark hair and tan skin and _holyshit that's a sword_.

Arthur ducked down and hunkered as close to the bush as he could, pulling his dark coat over his head to hide his light blonde hair. He watched helplessly as the laughing man with the fucking _sword_ stood over the other and planted a foot on his barrel chest. The man on the ground froze, his babbling carrying over into hyperventilating.

Even though Arthur was crouched at least thirty meters away from the scene and the swordsman was speaking quietly, he still heard him clear as crystal. "I'm only doing this for your own good, Sadiq," the man said with a strangely happy tone. "You're too chatty. You knew that one day that big mouth would get you into trouble." He leveled the sword against Sadiq's neck, and both Arthur and the victim's breathing stopped. "You know, Sadiq, it could be worse," he said lightheartedly; Arthur saw the flash of teeth as he grinned. "It could be Gilbert." Then he slashed the sword across his throat, and Arthur clenched his eyes shut and held his lips closed with his teeth until the sound of Sadiq's gurgling convulsions stopped. Then he made himself open his eyes again and _stay_, no matter what his pumping heart told him. If he moved now, he might draw the swordsman's attention to himself now that his target was a corpse. He wouldn't bet on a second wind of luck when a live sword was involved.

When he looked again, the murderer was wiping his sword clean on the man's shirt. "You weren't very nice, anyway," he said to the body, and two things hit Arthur at once:

_He has a Spanish accent._

_I need to call the police._

He backed out of sight as slowly as he could, kneeling inside the second bush in the line of hedges (camellias, his mind told him) and pulling out his mobile with hands that he didn't realise were shaking until he pressed the '0' instead of the '9'. He took a deep, but quiet, breath and dialed the right numbers carefully, cupping his hand over his mouth and receiver to block his voice from hitting the cold night air and the Spaniard's ears.

"_911, what's your emergency?_"

"Murder," Arthur breathed as loud as he dared. "Lowell Park, First Avenue and 28th Street. Please, please hurry, he's got a _sword-_"

"_Someone will be there shortly. Are you safe?"_

Arthur held in the dictionary's worth of sarcastic quips he had in answer to that question and leaned forward carefully, looking through the blessedly thick and well-trimmed evergreen leaves. The killer had put his sword into the sheath strapped onto his back and was trying to heave the much larger body onto his shoulders. It was late enough and the park was secluded enough that he didn't have to worry about hurrying too much. He hummed as he wrestled with the dead weight; he hadn't noticed Arthur at all.

"As safe as I can be," he finally whispered back. "Just hurry, he's trying to get rid of the body."

"_Two squad cars are on their way. What's your name, sir?_"

"Arthur Kirkland." Why was he still on the phone with this daft woman? "Can I hang up now?"

"_We have your coordinates, so yes._"

"Brilliant." He snapped his phone closed a millisecond before he thought about the noise made by a phone snapping closed.

The Spaniard's head whipped up and towards him, and his heart stopped in his chest again as the white teeth of his grin grew. "I see I have a peeping Tom," he said lightly, getting to his feet from where he was squatting next to the body and drawing his sword in one fluid motion. Arthur was paralyzed in his camellia bush, watching as he whirled the sword around in the air a few times, steel blurring into a silver streak as he walked towards Arthur's hiding spot slowly. "It makes me sad to have to kill an innocent, but it would make me sadder to get caught, I think." Arthur took in quick, shallow breaths through his nose. "Then again, maybe you're not so innocent," he considered as easily as if he was deciding what to eat for dinner, sliding a hand down the flat of his sword.

_Where the fuck were the police?_

"Come out, _cielito_. You can't hide in the flower bushes forever." He grinned wider somehow and stopped in front of the first bush in the line of the hedge. He plunged his sword into its depths just as a police car came screaming up the street on one side of the park, followed by sirens on the other side of the block. The Spaniard looked up at the flashing lights and muttered something angry in Spanish, pulling his sword out of the tangle of branches and dropping it on the ground, backing away with his hands in the air. His grin turned into a steadily deepening scowl as three officers came at him from all sides, guns trained on his chest and shouting orders. The fourth officer saw Arthur in the bush, much more visible through the leaves at the back angle, and holstered his weapon to help him out. Arthur's legs were cramped from being in the same position and from shock, so he let the officer lead him to one of the squad cars numbly.

His gaze caught on the paling body bleeding out onto the dirty snow and brown grass, then were drawn up to the killer's shining eyes. He was pressed bodily against the other police car and cuffed as he was read his Miranda rights, but he was looking right back at Arthur. When their eyes met, the killer gave him a blindingly wide smile.

Arthur looked away and followed the guiding hand of his officer.

* * *

It took most of the rest of the night for the police station to get his statement and send it on to NYPD. As one of the kinder ones explained to Arthur, Antonio Carriedo – the Spanish killer – was a hitman working for the Vargas mafia. He had been on their wanted list for a while now, even though he had already been arrested twice; lack of conclusive evidence and mysterious changes of heart in the juries kept him from being convicted. With an eyewitness in Arthur now, they hoped to put him behind bars once and for all.

"Of course, we'll have to put you under protection now," the officer who had explained things and made him tea said. They were sitting side by side in the waiting area, watching the other officers, both from Newark and NYPD, scurry around. Apparently Carriedo was a bigger catch than Arthur had ever thought. "You've heard of the Witness Protection Program, right?" Arthur nodded, staring blankly at the cup in his hands. It wasn't very good tea, but he appreciated the effort. "With the way the Vargas's have been ever since their old boss fell a few years ago and his grandsons took over, I wouldn't want you to be out and about by yourself for a long time." The officer pushed himself upright, a movement which seemed to cause the large man more effort than it should. "We'll get your paperwork filled out and applied for as soon as we can so we can get you away from here quickly."

Arthur blinked as he tried to think past his sleep and shock-addled brain. "You mean I have to quit my job?"

The officer shrugged. "For now, at least, until the trial. A case this big, you never know if it'll take a month or three years." He pursed his lips together and stared at the wall over Arthur's head as he thought. "Why don't I get someone to take you home so you can get some rest? You've had a long day."

Arthur smiled weakly up at him. "You could say that."

* * *

Arthur ended up falling across his bed with his shoes still on and sleeping throughout the next day and only woke when he realised someone had been hammering at his door for two minutes straight. He straightened himself up from his bed and wiped at his eyes, stumbling to his door and undoing the chain blindly to open it.

Francis stood with his fist in the air, mouth open to yell up a storm at him until he looked at Arthur. His expression quickly changed from fury to concern, and he ushered Arthur back inside, closing the door behind him, and sat him down on his couch. The entire time, Arthur stared and mumbled blearily at the floor, barely opening his eyes and yawning every fifteen seconds.

When they both sat down, Francis took Arthur's hand in his and faced him. "What on _Earth_ happened to you?"

Arthur yawned again. "Saw someone get killed last night," he said, too tired to be anything but blunt. "'Parently it was some big mob hitman guy and I've got to go into witness protection or summat." He shrugged. Francis, who had pressed a hand over his mouth since the first sentence, clenched his other hand in a death grip over Arthur's.

"Can you tell me about it?" he finally said, hand falling away from his mouth. Arthur avoided his eyes.

"It was in the park across the street on my way home last night," he murmured. "He killed some kind of inside man snitch, according to the police. He killed him using a _sword_." Arthur laughed shakily. "He almost killed me. Would've killed me, actually, if the police hadn't shown up."

Francis was speechless for the first time in his life. While he may not necessarily _like_ Arthur, that didn't mean he wished for him to get his life turned upside down like this. He just ran his thumbs over the back of Arthur's hands and let him pitch forward and bury his face in Francis's expensive silk shirt.

* * *

That was the last time Arthur saw anyone from his old life.

After Francis calmed him down and promised not to tell anyone but his boss what happened, he left. Barely moments later, the officer stationed in the unmarked car in the parking lot knocked on his door. She told him that his paperwork had been sent to the OEO and he might as well start packing his toothbrush and a few sets of warmer clothes.

"Warmer cloths?" he asked curiously, hand idly turning the doorknob. "Why?"

The officer, a blonde woman with a long ponytail, grinned. "Because, Mr. Kirkland, you're going down to Dixie."

* * *

{A/N: So this is a kink meme thing I'm working on for this prompt: _"__While working overseas in America, Arthur is a key witness to a gruesome murder performed by one of the most ruthless underground mafia organizations in the country. The government gives him a new name and relocates him to a new town, where he finds himself under the supervision of the local Chief of Police and his rookie officer, Alfred. Arthur gets used to his new life with the help of the Chief and Alfred, and while he and the rookie constantly argue and bicker, over time they develop a close friendship. _

_But just as everything seems to be settling down for Arthur, news leaks out of his location, and the group he's supposed to testify against makes their way to his city to eliminate him."_

I am obviously taking a few liberties with this prompt, although I'm not telling y'all what they are quite yet ^^ This will be a much slower paced, softer, more serious fic than any of my others, and (hopefully) will be a lot more concise than anything else. At this point, it's set at about ten chapters.

And yes. This is the main reason 'The Baffled King and the Idiot Hero' hasn't been updated.}_  
_


	2. your poor shattered mind can't take it

Chapter 1

"What do you _mean_, you got arrested?"

There was a laugh over Lovino Vargas's phone. "Now don't be like that, my love," a deep, accented voice said in Spanish, despite the fact that Lovino had asked his question in Italian. It was a habit they followed; it made their conversations more difficult to translate. "It's not like it hasn't happened before."

Lovino hissed at him as he walked briskly through the dark alleys of Brooklyn. "Don't talk like that over the phone, idiot!"

The voice laughed again. "Why? It's not like they don't already know everything already." Lovino grumbled, but didn't argue the fact.

"How'd you manage to get caught this time, bastard?" he asked, shoving past a hooker and her client by a Dumpster.

"A civilian walked by and called the cops on me," the man on the other end answered, tone growing dark. "I got it done, of course," he assured Lovino.

"Yes, yes, fine, that's perfect. Now how are we supposed to get you out of jail- _again_? _Stupid_!" Lovino hit his forehead with the heel of his hand a few times, pausing to lean against the building next to him and take a few shaky breaths. "You are all right, right?"

A softer, kinder laugh this time; Lovino allowed himself a small smile. "As well as I can be. I still don't like it here, but at least this station's nicer than the one in New York. They don't even have an officer eavesdropping on the call this time! Although they did take Rusty away." There was an audible pout at the mention of his beloved and well-used sword with the name that never failed to make Lovino shake in head in wonder. Who named a sword _Rusty_?

Lovino shook his head as always, then curled his shoulders in a little as his hold on his phone shifted into a desperate clutch. "Speaking of which, they're probably going to cut you off soon. I'll handle this, okay? You just worry about not picking up the soap." The other man laughed, carefree and clashing with the radio waves of the phone.

"As you wish." Lovino sucked in a breath.

"Take care of yourself, you fool of a fuck," he whispered, his tone betraying his words. Then he hung up before he could get a reply and shoved the phone back into his pocket, picking his quick pace back up as he made a beeline for his brother's hideout.

He had an eyewitness to take care of now.

* * *

"_Sweet home Alabama! Where the skies are so blue!_"

"_Would you stop that?_"

The latest US Deputy Marshal in a chain of US Deputy Marshals (and he'd forgotten the name of every one of them) grinned at him from the driver's seat of the mid-sized Honda. "Aw, come on, Art, I'm just welcomin' you properly," he said with a grin, a slight Southern drawl colouring his words. "You're gonna love it down here, I promise." He tapped along to the song on his steering wheel, and Arthur turned away with a 'hmph' and stared out the window at the trees and fields along the side of the interstate. "You've missed the hot weather, so you won't roast in those stiff clothes a'yours." Arthur snorted indignantly, but it was lost on the deputy, who had turned his attention back to the road.

There was silence as the marshal hummed along with the rest of the song and Arthur glowered out the window. It had been a long and hectic trip down from New Jersey, changing out cars and deputy marshals at every state line and catnapping when he could throughout the night. He was finally on the last leg of his horrible journey with the man he was 'assigned to' for however long he was stuck in this situation, and he had turned out to be an insatiable chatterbox.

"So what's a Brit doin' gettin' tangled up in the Jersey mafia?" the deputy asked suddenly, breaking the silence and jolting Arthur from his half-asleep state.

Arthur frowned at him over his shoulder. "Didn't you get a case file or something, Officer?"

He laughed. "Don't call me Officer, call me Al – or Alfred, if your fancypants self wants to be all proper. I'm not an officer, anyway, I'm a Deputy Marshal." Al gave a sidelong glance to Arthur. "Besides, I like to know a little bit of personal info about the people I'm protectin'."

Arthur looked away from his blue eyes. "I work- I _worked_ as a book editor for the American branch of a British publisher you probably haven't heard of in Manhattan," he began, pulling on his fringe idly. "I wasn't involved with the mafia at all. It was just happenstance that I saw Carriedo kill that Sadiq fellow."

"He used a sword, didn't he?" Al asked excitedly, and Arthur shuddered. "Badass."

"You have no idea."

Something in Arthur's tone must have set off warning bells in Al's head, because he reached over and patted Arthur's arm. "Hey, if you don't wanna talk about it, it's okay," he said softly. "You can tell me on your own time." Arthur shrugged his hand off and crossed his arms with a huff. Al laughed softly. "It's just exciting, y'know, havin' my first solo job be somethin' this cool."

Arthur blinked and actually looked at Alfred. Blonde hair that was a little too long for Arthur's satisfaction, thin-framed glasses over blue eyes, tan skin, a short-sleeved button up that did little to hide that he obviously worked out a lot. He frowned.

"How old are you, Alfred?"

"Twenty-six." Arthur bristled instantly. The person that the United States government was relying on to protect him from angry Italian mobsters was younger than him and as green as spring grass! "Don't you worry, though - I've got this in my blood! No one's gonna get a whiff a'ya while I'm around." He gave Arthur a winning smile to which Arthur frowned resolutely. Al laughed at him again; Arthur was unable to hide his smile this time. He crossed his legs and went back to staring out the window while his new Marshal went back to singing along with the radio.

* * *

The interstate led them through and past Birmingham until they got off on a strip mall exit just beyond the main city. Alfred stopped for McDonald's, buying Arthur a milkshake that he hadn't asked for but accepted anyway. The girl at the drive-thru window waved at Al and greeted him by name when he pulled up.

"You come here often, I guess," Arthur said with an amused smile as they waited at the red light to get back on the main road. Al shrugged.

"It's the closest fast food place to where I grew up, and where you're gonna live." He poked Arthur's shoulder on the 'you're', and he swatted the hand away.

"Whatever. You've got a green light." Al jerked his attention back to the road and turned right, shoving a handful of fries into his mouth in the process. "So where are we going?"

Alfred swallowed heavily and smiled. "You're gonna love it, Artie-"

"If you call me anything besides Arthur one more time I will kill you, driving be damned."

He snorted. "Yeah, right. Anyway, _Arthur_, it's a little town just up this road a ways called Shannon. Feels like you're in the middle of nowhere, but it's not even fifteen minutes from downtown." He took a pull from his Coke before continuing, "I got an old friend a'mine to give you a place to stay for now – man, two days is _not_ enough time to rent an apartment around here. For now, you're his cousin recovering from a bad marriage in the good ol' US of A." The car turned left at last green light just before the developments fell away to American forest wasteland. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you're nice and settled and more thoroughly briefed on your new background before I go."

Arthur shifted through the helter skelter information session in his head, trying to pick out what was meaningful and what was Southern gibberish. "You're leaving me?"

Alfred laughed. "Well yeah! It'd be mighty suspicious if I stuck around you for too long, 'specially since most of Shannon already knows I'm a Marshal – although only the police department and Matt knows exactly what it is I'm doin', a'course." Al glanced at him from the corner of his eye with a smirk. "You'll be _fine. _The police there are new, but they know what they're doin', and even I'd think twice about tryin' to pull the wool over Matt's eyes when he gets all mama bear on ya. Besides, I'll just be a twenty minute drive away if worst comes to worst."

Arthur gave in with a sigh. "So how often were you planning on checking on me, anyway?" Al shrugged.

"Figured we'd start with once a week and go from there. Matt's wife likes to feed me, so it shouldn't be too hard to see ya once a week." Al gave him another sidelong glance that Arthur was beginning to learn was a common habit. "The way you look, I'm sure she'll wanna feed you all the time, too."

Arthur sputtered in syllables normally only heard in keyboard smashing. "What does _that_ mean?"

Al gave a little shrug that somehow moved the entire right side of his body. "Katyusha just likes to see men with meat on their bones, s'all."

"What kind of bloody name is Katyusha?"

"Haha, 'bloody'. You're so British."

And that marked the first of many blows to the head dealt to Alfred by Arthur.

"Hey, hey, be nice to your hero! Anyway, she's Russian or Ukrainian or sumpin' like that. Cancer doctor. Came over here for UAB and stayed for Matt, God only knows what she sees in him." The bumpy forest terrain turned back into houses, and Alfred slowed down to residential pace before pulling into the parking lot of an obviously new brick police station.

Alfred cut off the engine and climbed out of his car, gesturing for Arthur to follow suit. As he opened the rear door to get his briefcase, he called over the car, "Now, although these guys are pretty good, they're still a really new force – Shannon only just got big enough to _need_ a police force – and this's their first real big thing, so they might come on a little strong. Just warnin' ya." Arthur rolled his eyes and followed him to the door.

"I've worked in Manhattan for the past four years. I think I can take a few backcountry sheriffs." Al snorted and held open the door for Arthur. He scowled and breezed past him into the station.

* * *

When Alfred had said that they might 'come on strong', Arthur hadn't thought that he'd have a very foreign and very unwanted arm slung around his shoulders the second he walked in, pulled more than led past a small blonde man with a kind and currently apologetic smile at the front desk, and pushed into a chair before he could even take a breath. After the fact, and after his kidnapper – a much taller officer with long and wildly spiked blonde hair – sat down in the chair across from him, leaning on his elbows on his widespread knees, Arthur was forced to blink a few times before he realised that the new person was speaking actual _words_.

"-the chief should be back any minute now, he went to get coffee at the diner down the street- _ow_! Oh, hey, Chief's back!" He finally stopped talking when a new person appeared, slapping him on the back of the head with an impassive expression and a cardboard tray of coffee in his other hand. He shoved the tray in the other officer's hands before turning to Arthur.

"I'm sorry about him, he doesn't know what manners are," he said coolly. The taller man stuck his tongue out at him and flounced off to go hand out the coffee, but not before nodding at Arthur and introducing himself as Officer Densen. The police chief looked at the ceiling as if asking it for patience.

Arthur shook his head and set his thoughts straight. It had been a very long trip. Alfred finally caught up and stood behind his chair, one hand resting on the back of it. "Hey, Luke, what's crackin'?"

The police chief sent Alfred a withering glare; Arthur decided that he was going to like this man. "Lukas Bondevik," he said to Arthur curtly, extending his hand. Arthur stood quickly to shake it. "I'll brief you in my office. Alfred, you're coming, too." He walked over to a door in the side of the main room, leaving Alfred and Arthur to follow him into his office.

They sat down in the chairs in front of his desk, and Arthur took the manila folder that the chief handed to him. "Here's all you need to know about your new life. We don't have your new passport or visa yet since it's been such short notice, but they'll come in soon enough." Arthur opened the folder and skimmed the information with the ease of years in the publishing business. Apparently he was now a journalist from Devon – at least he got to keep the literary part of his backstory. Like Alfred had told him earlier, his excuse for being in the States was recovering from a messy divorce back in England – the details were given in the file; Arthur felt sorry for what his new self had to have gone through – and was here until his visa expired or he 'got over her'.

He closed the folder when he finished and sat up straight. "Kensington? Really?" he asked in reference to his new last name. The chief shrugged.

"It starts with a 'k'." He stood back up and looked sharply at Al. "I'll leave you to it, then." Then he left his office and closed the door behind him.

Arthur stared at the closed door, then at Alfred. He had turned his chair around to face Arthur's, and gestured for Arthur to do the same. Intrigued, he set the folder down on the front of the chief's desk and did as he was told.

"There are a few rules you need to follow while you're in my custody," Al began, blue eyes serious for once. "You seem pretty smart, but even smart people make stupid mistakes." Arthur nodded, trapped in Alfred's gaze. "The most important rule ever is that _you can't talk to anyone from your old life_. At _all_. I only know what I know about the Vargas's through case files and hearsay, since their reach doesn't quite make it down here, but they're sure to be looking for ya. Carriedo was a big part of their operation, I've been told, and he's a very old friend of both of the new bosses. They may not sniff the old you out right away, but they'll definitely find you, and then your friends. The fewer people up in New York who know where you are, the safer you'll be." He reached forward and gripped Arthur's shoulders to hold his attention. "You got it?"

Arthur stared up at him with slightly wide eyes, nodding slightly. Then Alfred grinned widely, and-

_-Brown grass and a black sky, swirling silver and a white smile-_

He shook his head to ban the images flashing by from his thoughts. "Yes, yes, I understand," he said, brushing off Al's hands and standing up, turning to the desk and spending too much time retrieving his folder. "Can I go to sleep now?"

Alfred gave him a curious look when he turned back around, but shrugged and opened the office door for Arthur.

* * *

Once they said goodbye to the policemen in the station – according to Al's whispers, the nice man at the front who he shouldn't even try to call by his last name and Densen were partners, while the other two officers were out on patrol – Alfred drove him down the street into what passed as downtown Shannon and parked in front of an awning that read 'The Sugar Maple' with a tree drawn on the glass.

"Come on in and I'll introduce you to Matt." Al whistled as he walked in before Arthur, still waiting to hold open the door for him. Arthur frowned at him.

"I'm not a woman, you know."

Alfred looked confused. "Okay?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "I'm going to have to spell everything out for you, aren't I," he muttered under his breath, then continued before Alfred could object, "You don't need to keep holding the door open for me."

Al blinked, then laughed. "It's just common courtesy, Arthur. Now come on in," he said, ushering him in with an embellished hand flourish.

The Sugar Maple was any other average American diner, only with a wall of liquor bottles behind the counter and a Canadian flag taped to the cash register. An older woman and what could only be her son were behind the counter while a short Asian girl skated around the third-filled tables in a waiter's apron and a dress that reminded Arthur distinctly of a candy cane. Alfred walked straight to the counter and sat down on a stool, gesturing for Arthur to join him with a pat on the stool next to him. Several of the patrons waved and called a hello to him, and he greeted them by name in return. The son came over and leaned on the other side of the counter from Alfred, chin on his hand. "Hullo, Al."

"Gee, I'm happy to see you, too, Matt, no need to go all hyper on me," Al said sarcastically, then jerked his thumb at Arthur. "I brought your cousin."

"My-" Matt looked confused for a second before comprehension dawned on him. "Oh, right! Hello, Arthur, it's been a while." Arthur gave him the best smile he could muster.

"You could say that." They shook hands awkwardly over the bar. "Nice to m- see you again, Matthew."

They smiled weakly at each other, then all three of them jumped when a damp rag slapped the counter between them. "Not even going to say hello to your own aunt, eh, Arthur?" Matthew's mother said with a spark in her eye, hand on her hip and leaning around her son. Arthur leaned back automatically.

"Er, hello, aunt?" She stared at him for a moment longer, dark blue eyes piercing behind her glasses, before throwing her head back and laughing. Then she hoisted herself up onto the bar and swung her legs over it to the other side so she could envelop him in a bear hug. (It was impressive that she was able to, since both her and her son were built more along the lines of saplings than of people.)

"Call me Susan, you're old enough for that now," she told him softly, then pulled back and held him by his shoulders. "It's been such a long time since I last saw you – you couldn't have been bigger than my leg!" She hit the side of her hand against her hip to demonstrate her point. Then she puckered her mouth and narrowed her eyes. "You look exhausted, sweetheart."

_Finally_. Arthur gave her a helpless smile. "It was a very long trip. I could do with a nap." More than a nap, probably; he hadn't had a good night's sleep for days – even before the murder.

Alfred poked her shoulder, and she looked it at him. "Yes, Alfred?"

"Y'know that I'm here too, right?" He looked torn between laughing and sulking. She flapped her hand at him.

"Oh, psh. I see you almost as much as I see my own son, you don't count." She turned her attention back to Arthur. "How's about I get these two useless lugs to take you over to Mattie's place so you can get some rest?"

Arthur smiled. "That'd be lovely."

* * *

Alfred drove him down a side street to a small house painted pale yellow, a pink camellia bush blooming by the red door. "Well, here we are. New home sweet home."

Arthur looked it over as he got out and walked around to the back of the car to get his bag. It was certainly a sight more charming than his old apartment. At least it wasn't a trailer, like what he'd feared from the little he'd known about Alabama before getting here.

Al beat him to the punch and already had his duffel bag slung around his shoulder when Arthur looked away from the house. Arthur scowled at him, but decided it wasn't a battle worth fighting for as Al took long strides after Matt to the front door.

"There's a spare bedroom in the back that you can use for now," Matt said as he led them down the hall of the small starter home and to a door on the left. He opened the door and let Arthur and Alfred in. "I'll wake you up for dinner when Katyusha gets home. She'll want to meet you." He smiled at him, then left.

Al set his bag on the small bed with the ugly floral bedspread and stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning against the doorframe as he watched Arthur dig through his bag. "I always eat dinner with Matt on Sundays, so I'll be back tomorrow. You okay for now?"

"I'll be fine once I sleep for a few days," Arthur grumbled. He finally found the sweatpants and old shirt that served him as his pajamas and started unbuttoning his shirt. Halfway down, he glanced sharply at Alfred, who was still leaning on the doorframe and staring into space in the vicinity of Arthur. "Do you mind?"

Alfred jolted, then took in the situation and smiled, backing into the hallway. "Of course, of course!" He closed the door, pausing with just a crack open. "I'll be back tomorrow with all your new stuff, all right?"

Arthur waved at him, shrugging off his shirt and pulling his old one over his head. "Just go away and let me sleep."

Al laughed. "Can do."

The door clicked shut, and Arthur didn't remember crawling under the covers.


	3. You don't have to take it from me

Chapter 2

Ludwig rubbed his fingers against his temples. "Please tell me you're joking."

Lovino scowled and crossed his arms and legs, sulking in the armchair across the smoky room. "Believe me, I wish I was."

The large blonde man let out a great sigh and leaned forward, the leather of his own chair creaking under him. "Did he finish the job?"

"Yes, of course, he always finishes the job, but he's in _jail_, they have his _sword_, and they have a fucking _eyewitness_," Lovino answered testily.

"Evidence can be compromised," Ludwig said wearily. "That witness is going to be a problem, however. You say Antonio didn't know anything about him?"

He shook his head sharply, picking at a hole in the leather of his armrest angrily. "All I know is it's a civilian. I don't even have a gender, although it's obviously someone he doesn't know, otherwise he'd have told me."

Ludwig sat back and resisted the urge to run his fingers through his slicked back hair. "So that just leaves us with a few million people to search through." He closed his eyes. "My head's hurting just thinking about it."

"That's why you give the job to me," a sharp voice said from the shadows. "I'll find the witness in a flash."

Ludwig frowned. "No one asked you, brother."

Clothing rustled from the source of the new voice, and a small albino man emerged into the dim light coming in from the false dawn of the window set at the street level a few feet above their heads. "Do they ever?" He sat down on the arm of Lovino's chair, smirking down at his boss, who sneered at him. "Don't worry, I'll spring your boyfriend out. It's been a while since I got to hack into the feds, anyway." Lovino grumbled and looked away at the boyfriend comment.

Ludwig could recognize a losing battle when he saw one. "Do whatever you like, brother, like usual," he said, waving him off, then stood up. His hand automatically reached out to hold away the hanging light from his head. "I'm going back to sleep. You should, too. Both of you." He glared at them sharply, then turned on his heel and melted into the shadows of the basement apartment.

Lovino watched him go with narrowed eyes and a growl crawling out of his throat, but was distracted by a hand clamping heavy onto his shoulder. The albino brother was staring at him with intensely serious red eyes.

"He's my friend, Lovi. I want him out as much as you." Lovino bit his lip and nodded, then marched away to his own cubby of a bedroom before he gave into the urge to cry into the albino's shirt.

Mob bosses couldn't cry, no matter which hitman or lover had just been arrested.

* * *

When Arthur finally woke up, the sky was grey outside his shuttered window and he felt better than he had in ages. He sat up slowly and ran his hands through his hair a few times, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he reoriented himself in the unfamiliar room. Pale peach walls surrounded him in a room not big enough for a normal-sized person to live in comfortably for too long. Arthur was lying in the lone twin bed, the headboard pushed against one wall; there was a small dresser on one side of him and a nightstand on the other that sported a table skirt that matched the horrible cabbage rose print of the bedspread. Arthur threw it off of him and wrinkled his nose in distaste, then got up and wandered into the hallway. Voices and the smell of something wonderful wafted out of a doorway down the hall towards the front door, light spilling out of it into the corridor. Arthur shuffled towards it and poked his head around the door and looked into the kitchen.

Matt and a very busty woman with short pale hair were sitting at the table and looked up at his appearance. The woman "Oh, good, you're awake. Come on in, breakfast is almost ready," Matt said, standing up and going back over to the waffle iron on the counter.

Arthur's mind stumbled to a halt as he walked fully into the room and sat down at the table. "Breakfast?"

"Yep. You went out like a light as soon as you came in, and Kat didn't want to wake you up." He smiled at his wife over his shoulder. She gave him a small one in return. "Oh, by the way, Kat, Arthur; Arthur, Katyusha."

Katyusha rolled her eyes affectionately. "And you wonder why I do not take you home," she said softly, a Slavic accent heavy on her tongue. "No manners, any of you." She shrugged at Arthur, who laughed quietly.

"I completely sympathize. After all, I've met Alfred." She covered a giggle with her hand, and he smirked at her in mutual European understanding.

Suddenly, Matt slammed the serving plate of waffles on the table between the two of them, glaring sharply at Arthur while blocking most of Katyusha from view. "Rule one if you wanna live long, bud. Don't flirt with my wife."

Arthur sputtered as Katyusha blushed and slapped her husband's back. Matt just glared harder at Arthur. "I wasn't- I didn't mean-" He looked away from the icy stare and fidgeted with his hands, feeling his face grow hot. "You don't have to worry about that with me at all," he said quietly. Katyusha stopped in her background chastising of her husband, and Arthur heard Matt's clothes shift as he straightened.

"Ooh. I see. Well, that's good." Arthur didn't look up from cleaning the fingernails of one hand with the thumbnail of the other. "So I guess you should be worrying instead, eh, Kat?" Matt joked. Arthur jerked his head up sharply as she laughed.

"I'm not a homewrecker!" he exclaimed, crossing his arms empathically and sitting back in his chair.

Matt just smirked at him with eyes narrowed in amusement. "Hurry up, your food's getting cold," he said, walking around Katyusha's chair to sit back down at the table. Arthur blinked twice and looked at Katyusha; she gave a small shrug and took a waffle from the serving plate.

* * *

After breakfast, Matt and Katyusha took it upon themselves to give him a small tour of the area before Alfred returned later that day. Like Arthur suspected, there wasn't that much to see, especially after four years of New York City; there was a golf course up the main road and a high-end resort down it for the golfers, but otherwise, Shannon was in the middle of the Alabama deciduous forest. It was mid-November, so most of the leaves had fallen from the trees and there was a slight nip to the air, but not enough for Arthur to want more than a jacket. The three of them ended up wandering a half tank of gas away, Matthew driving them around cow fields and rolling, tree-covered hills as they used the relative safety of the car to talk about Arthur's old identity and his new. By the time they found their way back to Shannon, the two of them had helped Arthur come to terms with his new life and craft a more in depth background for Arthur Kensington than what the government had already designed.

Shannon was a very small town. Most of its residents worked at the golf course or the resort; a few, like Katyusha, worked in downtown Birmingham, but didn't mind the extra few minutes' commute in exchange for the chance to get away from the sprawl of the suburbs and into the forested wilderness that most of the American South was famous for. Until a year or two ago, they hadn't even been a town, but a 'community'. Since then, however, they'd pulled together enough money for a five-man council and a police department, and were very proud of their new status after fighting against the behemoth of Hoover to the south.

Even with all of this growth, 'downtown Shannon' was still fundamentally a crossroads with the police station, gas station, church and grocery store on the corners. Matthew's Sugar Maple was technically zoned residential, but since his mother lived above it, and it was somewhere to eat and get a drink closer than the interstate exit Arthur had driven through on his way in, no one in the town felt there was a reason to protest.

After the extended tour, Matthew pulled around to the back of The Sugar Maple and parked the car. "I figured since we had some time before Alfred came over, we could stop in and see Mom for a bit." He laughed at Arthur's widening eyes in his rear view mirror. "Don't worry, she's not in the diner today, so she won't act like your aunt this time. Too much." Katyusha giggled and stepped out of the car at the same time as her husband, leaving Arthur to hurry to follow them up the metal stairs to the second story, where Matt let himself in.

"Mom!" he called. Further inside, metal clanged together before his mother's head poked through a door on the far side of the front room.

"Oh, Mattie! You brought guests!" she said, her face lighting up at seeing Arthur and Katyusha behind her son. "Just a mo', let me dry off my hands." Her head disappeared. "Make yourselves comfortable!" she called back. Matthew sprawled across one of the collection of sofas, Katyusha sitting next to him in the circle of his arm laid along the back of the couch. Arthur sat in a loveseat awkwardly, taking in the eclectic décor. Even though he barely knew Susan, he already saw her influence all over the room.

She emerged a moment later, beelining to the chair beside Arthur. "It's wonderful to see you again, darling, it really is," she told him, holding his eyes and patting his arm on the armrest. He nodded.

"Likewise."

She smiled over at her daughter-in-law. "And it's always lovely to see you, Kat." Her eyebrows rose and she waved a finger in the air as she said, "I have an idea! Why don't you two head back home so Arthur and I can have some quality chat time, as new aunt and nephew? I'll bring him with me when I come over tonight."

Matt shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me. What would you like to do, Arthur?"

Arthur looked at Susan, then asked, "Do you have any tea, by chance?"

She beamed. "Of course! Which blend would you like?"

Arthur sighed in relief and smiled happily at an amused Matthew. "I think I'll stay here for a while."

* * *

Susan's collection of tea was as eclectic as everything else about her, and they chatted at her kitchen table over a citrus-flavored loose leaf. She told him about herself, Matthew, and Alfred, and in return, Arthur vented to her about everything he'd hated about New York.

"There's too much city up there," he muttered, staring into his tea leaves. At one time, he'd fancied that he could divine from them. "They don't lie when they sing about concrete jungles. It's nothing like down here."

"Mmhmm," Susan nodded along, pouring the last few drops of the hot water into her red and white leaf-patterned mug. She didn't seem to want anyone to forget that she was Canadian. "So do you like the change so far?"

Arthur shrugged. "It's only been a day so far, of course. But I think I will." He snorted. "At least there's no snow on the ground."

She chuckled. "You most likely won't see any snow at all, with Southern winters being what they are. My family back in Barrie thinks I've gone soft with all this time spent down here," she laughed, then glanced at the analog clock on the wall. "We better start heading over to Mattie's, or Alfred's gonna pitch a fit." They stood up, and Arthur was swept into another impossible bear hug. "If you ever need anyone to talk to, just come on in. The door's always open if I'm not downstairs." He nodded into her shoulder.

She let him go, then set their cups in the sink before slipping on the cardigan hanging off her chair. "Come on, we'll walk. It's just around the corner."

* * *

Alfred was sitting in the chair closest to the door when they walked in, and stood up instantly when he saw Arthur. "Thanks for stealing my witness, Miss Susan," he said, rolling his eyes and grabbing Arthur's elbow. "Not like he's in constant danger or anything."

She flapped her hand at him. "Oh, you'll get over it. Now play nice, you two," she ordered, the mother part of her seeping into her tone before she walked down the hallway to the kitchen.

Alfred steered Arthur to the couch, sitting him down before dropping beside him, shuffling the mess of paperwork spread over the coffee table.

Arthur stared at the avalanche of paper. "Is this all for me?"

"Yep. Most of these are just copies from the computer files, of course, but I figured that I'd have everything here so I could tell you anything 'n' everything you need to know," he told him, tongue slipping over his words as he talked too fast. Then he smiled sidelong at Arthur, and he wondered how in the world he hadn't noticed yesterday that his marshal was handsome. "I got so lucky with you, y'know."

"Pardon?"

Alfred pulled a few sheets together and tapped them on the table to straighten them out. "Most people who come into WITSEC are ugly, fat, dirty mob guys with dirty records and dirty brains," he explained. "And, s'far as I can tell, you don't fit any of those bills."

Arthur blinked and willed away the blush at the indirect compliment. "I wouldn't judge too soon on that."

Al laughed. "If you say so." He handed Arthur the papers he'd collected, then leaned in to direct him through the forms.

* * *

After dinner, Susan went back home and Matthew put Al and Arthur on dish duty ("You live here now, and you basically live here, so you might as well work like it").

"It's still gonna be a week until your visa comes in, and who knows how long it'll be until I can find you a place to stay. Apartment shopping is _hard_, man! You'd think being a fed would make life better, but _nooo_," Alfred complained as he dried out the rice pot. "Until then, do you think you can just, like, hang out around here without blowing up the place?"

Arthur smiled. "I'm good at that, don't worry. I'm sure I can find something to amuse myself with for a week." Al smiled in return.

"Just remember, no old life contact. The only ones who know you as Kirkland are the four of us and the police, and it has to stay that way."

Arthur sighed. "Yes, I understood the fourth time you told me that."

Al laughed. "Hey, you can never be too careful." They lapsed into silence for a few more dishes. "If you wanna meet people around here," Alfred said suddenly, wiping off the silverware, "just go hang out at The Sugar Maple tomorrow. Everyone comes through there, and it's rare enough for a new person to show up that you'll have someone to talk to all day long." He gave Arthur another sidelong smile. "I'll call you tomorrow evening to check in."

"If I can make the dratted thing work, of course," Arthur grumbled about the new phone he'd been given along with the other electronics and personal effects of Arthur Kensington. Alfred laughed.

"You're such a stuffy old priss sometimes, Arthur." He scowled up at Al.

"Yes, well, you're just another cocky Yank." Alfred raised his eyebrows and snorted.

"I'm not a Yank. I'm from the South."

Arthur scoffed. "To-may-to, To-mah-to."

"Arthur, if you don't want to get shot, I'd suggest not calling anyone down here a Yank. I'm supposed to protect you, but if you go around insulting people, there's not much I can do."

Arthur looked up at him curiously. "You're actually serious?"

Alfred laughed and spread his hands. "Welcome to Alabama."

* * *

{A/N: Yay! No development whatsoever! :D

Also, I dunno if I mentioned, this takes place ten years in the future, so current events and whatnot are smudged a bit.}


	4. when you should have found someone

Chapter 3

When Gil showed up alone at the shady Brooklyn bar of the week Saturday night, Francis knew something was wrong.

He smiled at him as Gil sat down next to him at the bar and slid him his first drink of the night. The glass of sherry he'd ordered as well sat on his other side.

"So, where's Toni?" he asked, leaning on his knuckles and raising his eyebrows elegantly at his friend. The albino laughed raucously, throwing his head back.

"He got his ass _deported_, the idiot," he said, taking a swig of his imported German beer.

Francis blinked at him. "Deported? How did he ever manage that?"

Gil chuckled and stared into his bottle. "He didn't renew his paperwork. He _forgot._"

Francis rubbed at his face with a smile. "Completely hopeless," he muttered. "So what does his little lover think about it?"

"What do you expect?" Gil smirked. "He's pissed as hell, but that's Romano's natural state. He must've cursed at him in four different languages when he found out – and then he followed him to Spain to make sure he didn't hurt himself!" They both laughed at the antics of their friend and his boyfriend.

"Do you know how long he'll be away this time?" Francis asked, swirling around his brandy in his glass. Gil shrugged.

"At least a few months, I'd wager, maybe more. Who knows with the system?" Gil raised his bottle in a toast. "To Toni!"

Francis laughed and clinked his glass against the bottle. "To Toni!"

They drained their drinks together, then Gil waved over another round. "Come on, just because all three of us aren't here doesn't mean we still can't get smashed!"

They split the untouched sherry between them in honor of their missing friend, but their usual Saturday of drunken disorder wasn't the same.

* * *

For the next week, Arthur spent most of his time on the back porch.

He did other things, of course. He'd spend most mornings in The Sugar Maple keeping Matt company and meeting the locals. It was oddly simple to settle into his new self. Kensington was only different in theory and in background, not in personality, and one of Arthur's many other minor aspirations in a past life had been acting. After the initial intense interest by the neighbors, they grew used to seeing him picking through a different tea a day at the bar, although they never grew tired of hearing his accent. He quickly bonded with the loud-mouthed and excitable Australian named Jake who was the groundskeeper at the golf course, along with the quiet Japanese stockbroker.

Arthur's mobility was extremely limited, however. Not only did he not have a car (both anymore or at all), but he hadn't ever bothered to learn how to drive in America, so even borrowing Matt's car to go for food was far out of the question. (Matt quickly learned how hopeless he was at cooking when he came home at his usual after lunch time to find the kitchen an atomic mess and a despondent Arthur facedown at the table. He'd agreed to help him clean up and never speak a word about it as long as he never tried to make anything more complicated than a bag of popcorn in his house ever again.)

For the most part, however, he wasted away the hours on the back porch, a space heater under his chair and a blanket around his shoulders. He started a few novels and scrapped them instantly, then dug them out the next day to see if they were any good. He burned his way through the book or two he'd thrown into the bottom of his duffel from home, and then started on the romance novel collection Katyusha kept under the coffee table to keep himself from going mad. If the sun was out and the wind wasn't blowing, he took up the care of Kat's little garden, even though most of the plants were dead at this time of year. When Alfred called to check in on him every evening, he pounced on the human contact and wouldn't let him hang up for at least half an hour and ended up learning more about him than he was strictly supposed to. Arthur wasn't Alfred's only assignment, although he was the only human one. For now, the cover story they had for Arthur allowed him to waste away in Matthew's backyard, but if he was going to be here for any period of time, he needed to get a job just so he could have something to do.

Right around the point where Arthur hit the wall of screaming boredom, Friday rolled around. For the few residents of Shannon, that meant the day when the wall of alcohol in The Sugar Maple actually got used and the restaurant turned into a bar. The thought of getting himself smashed had never been more appealing, so Arthur agreed to meet Jake there that night at the end of the bar.

Arthur had met all of Susan's employees during the week – Matthew, a large Cuban man named Alejandro (and he'd appreciate it if you didn't sing that song to him, at least if you liked your face), a Korean college student, the high school girl who waited tables in the evenings, and a Mexican immigrant family working the kitchens. The bartender, however, was a new face. A smaller man that was closer to a boy with curly, dishwater hair had taken residence where usually Susan and whichever man she had for the shift stood, pouring drinks for the redneck crowd that had appeared from the woods. Jake was already there, heckling the overworked bartender. When Arthur sat down next to him, Jake greeted him loudly and called for another round. The bartender plopped two Foster's down, barely glancing at Arthur to see if he would disagree with Jake's choice, and hurried away.

Jake started a conversation about rugby that was halfway unintelligible, and Arthur humored him while idly watching the little bartender flit between burly farmers and construction workers. "What's the lad's name?" he asked Jake after he finished a thought, gesturing to the bartender with his bottle.

"Hmm? Oh, that's Ray," he said, unphased by the switch in conversation topic. "Usually runs the bar over at the golf course, but Susan pays him a lil' overtime to come down here on the weekends." They watched him scurry around for a moment before Arthur drained the rest of his beer and stood up.

"I'll be right back. I need to ask Susan something."

* * *

Ray had been surprised to find a stranger behind the bar with his boss's seal of approval, but he soon learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth as Arthur started taking over his job.

Between university and the publisher, Arthur had run through a steady stream of odd jobs that he'd always wanted to try out, including bartending. It had been his favorite of the minimum wage series, and his longest running job before leaving it to be an editor. He had expected to stumble at first as he tried to remember the motions of bartending, but something about the week of boredom combined with the instant flurry he was thrown into caused all of it to come back as natural as breathing. With the two of them working together, the mob on the other side of the counter was satisfied enough to allow them to breathe again.

When everyone finally settled down and pulled away from the bar, Arthur and Ray leaned against the counter and sighed.

"Thanks for that," the original bartender said.

"It was my pleasure, really," Arthur assured him, wiping down the counter with the dishtowel he'd put into his back pocket. "I needed to do something productive or else I thought I'd go crazy."

Ray straightened and set about wiping down the accumulation of glasses set on a shelf under the counter. "Who are you, anyway? I've never seen you around these parts before."

"I'm Susan's nephew," Arthur said, the fabricated story flowing off his tongue easily after the continued questionings by the locals. "It's a long story that I'd rather not talk about, but I needed to get away from England for a while, so I came down for an extended visit."

Ray looked at him with a curious expression. "How extended?"

Arthur shrugged, perturbed by the look on his face. "At least a few months, probably more. Why do you ask?"

"_Chyes!_" Ray cheered, pumping his fist in the air. Arthur backed a step away as he was given a wildly happy grin and had a finger pointed at him. "_You_ can take my job!"

Arthur blinked a few times. "Pardon?"

"Oh, not this one, my other job! It'll be awesome!" Ray's glass cleaning picked up in intensity as he started babbling to himself, ignoring a very confused Arthur.

"I still have no idea what you're talking about."

Ray looked up and remembered he had an audience to his insanity. "Arthur, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

* * *

It turned out that Ray hated his job.

There was more to the story, of course. He'd followed a friend out of college since he'd graduated with a virtually useless English degree and didn't have a job, and had then looked upon the three year contract at the golf course club as a blessing of a stable job. When his new boss started to take a shine to him, though, he'd gotten nervous quickly. It wasn't necessarily _stalking_, he emphasized, but it was definitely creepy and uncomfortable.

Either way, he wanted to get out, but he was bound by contract until June. He had an Internet friend who owned some big site that was willing to give him a job, but he had to go to California for it, and unless he found a replacement for his contract, he couldn't leave. To him, Arthur was literally a God send.

After he'd pleaded with Arthur for the rest of the night, Arthur called Alfred to inform him of this new possibility. He'd laughed at the story, for whatever bizarre humor he found in it, and said that if the place met the Marshal's standards, he didn't see why, since the visa had come into the Marshal's Birmingham office on Friday.

They drove up to the main building of the golf course, a sprawling, overdressed affair, and parked in the front drop-off area. It was a little too cold and a little too early for golfers to want to be out on a Saturday, but it was still open.

"I really hope this Ivan Braginski isn't who I think it is," Alfred muttered to Arthur as they went up the stairs to the front door.

Arthur shrugged. "Well, I'm sure there's more than one Ivan Braginski in the world." Al held the door open for Arthur to his ever-decreasing irritation, then walked up to the front desk.

"We're here to speak with Ivan Braginski," he told the receptionist with a smile. She nodded and picked up her phone.

"Mr. Braginski, your interview is here," she said in a dull monotone. After the response, she hung up and said to the two, "He'll be down in just a moment. You can wait over there." She gestured to the sitting area across the lobby.

Alfred nodded and gave her a "Thank ya kindly, ma'am," then joined Arthur on the closest couch.

"Where did you know an Ivan Braginski, anyway?" Arthur asked him.

Al sat back and stretched out, arms along the back of the couch and feet on the coffee table. "We went to high school together," he explained, staring out the tall windows over the brown grass of the course. "We were always buttin' heads – in school, in sports, in girls, you name it. We went to different colleges after graduation and I haven't seen him since – and good riddance." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "It'd be just like him to not leave me alone, even after all these years."

Arthur leaned forward to look past him to the door to the back, from where a broad, tall man had just emerged. "Would that be him?"

Alfred turned to look. "Oh, for all the shit in Heaven," he hissed for only Arthur to hear. "Speak of the Devil and he will appear." He stood up, however, and greeted the approaching man. "Yo, Ivan! 'Sup, man?"

Ivan looked momentarily startled to see his old rival smiling at him, but he recovered quickly and laughed, taking the offered hand in a vice grip. "Alfred! It has been a long time, my friend." Arthur detected a faint Slavic accent not Southern – not nearly the strength of Katyusha's, but noticeable. The handshake was going on for far too long, and he eyed their grip under the idle pleasant small talk they exchanged to see their knuckles going white.

He moved to stand beside Alfred and crossed his arms, tapping his foot impatiently and glaring at the side of Alfred's face. "I thought I was the one we were here for, not the other way around," he said loudly. They looked at him sharply, then let go of their handshake battle and stepped away from each other.

"Of course, of course," Ivan said, ushering him back towards the door he'd come from. "Right this way."

Despite Alfred's unsettling presence, and despite the fact that Arthur was taking his unwilling favorite's place, Ivan could find no reason not to hire Arthur in Ray's stead. After they got the paperwork filled out and put into the system, Ivan led him back out again, telling him to come back on Thursday to pick up the schedule for the next week. Alfred and Ivan exchanged another bone-crushing, achingly polite handshake, and then they left.

Once they were safely back in the silence of the car, Alfred groaned and banged his head against his steering wheel.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, would you _stop _that?" Arthur pleaded, gripping Al by his collar and keeping him from giving himself a concussion.

"Of _course_ my first big assignment would have _him_ in it," he grumbled, starting the car with a purr and driving away.

Arthur sighed in frustration. "Well, if you're that concerned about it, you could find me a job somewhere else!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and sitting back against the car seat forcefully. Alfred sighed in return and waved his hand dismissively.

"Nah, that's not my point," he said. "Ivan's a slimy bastard, but he's also solid as a tank, and he's about as hard to get past when he wants to protect somethin'. He'll keep ya safe without even knowing you're _supposed_ to be kept safe. I jus' hate him on a personal level." He shrugged and glowered at the road. Arthur rolled his eyes and decided to ignore him until he stopped sulking.

The next week was going to be very long, he could feel it.

* * *

{A/N: A wild RUSSIA appears! :D

As a note, Ukraine and Russia are not related in this. If they are, it's some old, roundabout way that they will never know.

Francis does not know Toni and Gil are in the mafia. They're just inseparable drinking buddies.

Ray is Latvia, Jake is Australia. The friend Ray followed to the golf course is Estonia, and the friend he has in California is internet heir!Sealand.

Have I missed anything?}


	5. sometimes justice you will find

Chapter 4

A pale-skinned man with dark hair and a dark suit stepped out of the Newark precinct's back door, straightening his tie and glasses as he stepped back into the shadows and waited.

Precisely five minutes after his appearance, the door opened again to let out a harried-looking police officer with chin-length blonde hair. "Keep it quick this time, Edelstein," he snapped, facing the shadows where the other man was hiding. "I don't have all day."

A sigh. "Always so to the point, Vash," a nasal voice said in a tone as sharp as his appearance. "Can't we ever just talk like old times?"

The officer had his gun trained at the shadows in a flash of a draw. "_Today_, Edelstein."

"Fine." His glasses flashed as he stepped into the weak sunlight filtering into the back alley, ignoring the handgun trained on his chest with gloating ease. "I need the name of the witness in Antonio's case."

The officer frowned, then holstered his gun reluctantly. "You know they put him in WITSEC, right?"

Edelstein waved the comment away. "You shouldn't worry about these things, Vash, it's not healthy for you… or your sister." The policeman stiffened at the comment about his sister, fingers dancing at his hip and lip curling.

"It's Arthur Kirkland, and that's all I know so don't try any more of your slimy ways 'cause it won't do you any good." He scowled deeper, and Edelstein smiled without it reaching his eyes.

"See, now that wasn't so hard, was it, Vash?" he said smoothly.

Vash growled deep in his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. "Whatever. Can I just get my payment and go back to work now?"

Edelstein smirked. "Of course, old friend. Anything for such a loyal informant."

Vash raised his eyebrows at him, his pupils tiny black dots in aqua green irises. "That's not the reason I do this and you know it." Without another word, he reared back and punched Edelstein in the jaw, the force of it sending him sprawling on his back into the shadow of the police station. He stomped back in the precinct with the smallest smirk on his face, letting the door slam behind him.

In the alleyway, Edelstein sat up slowly and rubbed at his jaw, a bitter smile on his face. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, old friend."

* * *

Arthur ran out of things to do by Monday, since last week's Indian summer had passed and made it too cold to spend all day outside and his new job didn't start until Sunday, so he lapsed into his old fall back when he needed to stop thinking.

He cleaned.

It started with simply straightening up the few odds and ends and dusting off the surfaces of his borrowed guest room with his hand, but it quickly descended into vacuuming the hallway and sorting the recycling by type and doing all three residents' laundry and rearranging the books in the hall shelf by author. He was on his knees dusting the floorboards with Matt came home that afternoon.

"Dude. What are you doing?"

Arthur started and fell out of his crouch onto his ass, looking up at a very confused Matthew. His hands played with the dust cloth in his hands compulsively as he stuttered out, "Um, well, I got bored, you see, and I just needed something to do, so-"

"So you decided to clean my house?" Rather than sounding angry or upset, Matt just seemed bewildered.

Arthur smiled up at him sheepishly. "If you don't mind?"

Matthew laughed, startling Arthur just as much as his sudden appearance a moment before. "_Mind_? Why on this good Earth would I _mind_ you cleaning my house for _free_?" He shook his head. "By all means, if it makes you feel better, I won't stop you."

Arthur smiled for real and went back to the floorboards as Matt disappeared into the kitchen, calling through the walls at each other about what they wanted for lunch.

* * *

Between all the riot of the last few weeks, Thanksgiving Day appeared out of nowhere to Arthur. He'd tried to hide from his housers on Thursday, but Katyusha hunted him down and asked him to join them for dinner with such a hopeful expression that he couldn't bring himself to refuse. He had never celebrated the American holiday, since all of his true relatives were very British and none of his New York friends celebrated either - or if they did, they didn't care to invite him. The Williamses, however, would have nothing but his complete involvement (except in the kitchen, of course).

Which was how he found himself sitting next to his Marshal at the little-used dining room table with a plate full of turkey and dressing that evening, talking to Susan and Katyusha about living in New York City. There was too much sugar in his tea, and he was a firm believer that tea should never be iced, but he was able to ignore it as he lost himself in describing the city to the two very interested women. To his right, Alfred and Matthew kept up a steady stream of conversation about football or the Mesopotamians or something equally bizarre. When his monologue turned to the topic of Fashion Week, though, Al leaned over and butted into their conversation.

"Speakin' a' clothes - I'm taking you shoppin' tomorrow, Arthur, and nuttin' you can say will get ya out of it." Al gave him a shit-eating grin as a look of pure horror crawled over Arthur's face.

"Are you _mental_? It's the Friday after Thanksgiving! In _America_!"

Al shrugged, sitting back in his seat and leaving Arthur's personal bubble. "Yeah, but that's when the best deals are, and I'm workin' on a pretty tight budget for this job," he said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. " 'Sides, I bet you're gettin' tired of wearin' the same things over and over again." Arthur made a face at him, and everyone laughed. "And while we're out we'll go look at a few apartments I've found so we can finally get out of Matt's hair!" He flashed a thumbs-up, but it and his face fell when the rest of the table fell silent. "What?"

Katyusha and Matt exchanged a glance, then she turned to Alfred. "Actually, Alfred, we've been thinking."

"Oh, no," he groaned, putting his face in his hands.

"Oh, yes," Matthew answered with a gleeful smirk. "Do you think we can keep him?"

Arthur blinked at the married couple across the table from him. Katyusha smiled her warmest at him while Matthew winked. "What?"

"Dude, you've been cleaning my house for the past three days. Did you think we were gonna let you go that easily?"

Arthur looked over curiously at Alfred, who was mumbling into his hands. "Can they do that?"

Al lifted his face from his hands a little and rested his cheekbones on the heel of one hand, staring tiredly at Matt. "You would wait until I'd done all that work to find a place for him to live to tell me that." Matt just kept grinning at him, and Alfred sighed and sat up straight. "Do you _want_ to stay with them, Arthur?" Al asked him, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger and staring at him intently. Arthur looked down at his plate.

"I wouldn't mind, I guess. It'd certainly be much less lonely." He smiled unconsciously, then looked up sharply at Katyusha across from him. "If I'm going to stay here, though, you _will_ let me redecorate that God-forsaken room. No man should have cabbage roses on his bedspread and peach walls. _Peach!_" Kat and Susan giggled while Matt snorted.

"Do you have any idea how gay you sound right now?" Matt asked through his sneers of amusement. Arthur's face burned, but Al just laughed louder than all three of them and clapped Arthur too hard on the back.

"Don't worry, buddy, we'll find ya somethin' better tomorrow." The conversation turned to which shopping district had the smallest crowds and the best selections, and Arthur went back to eating what Katyusha put on his plate and listening quietly.

* * *

Although neither of them were exactly accomplished shoppers, by the end of the day Alfred's trunk had enough clothes for what they hoped was Arthur's full stay in Alabama, along with the black pants, vest, and jewel-toned button ups that made Arthur's new uniform and a denim duvet. Al introduced him to the Southern-based fast food chain Chik-Fil-A for lunch, then took him home as the sun was setting.

As they drove through the woods that buffered Shannon from the bustle of Alabama's largest metropolitan area, Arthur finally gave voice to a question he had been pondering for a while now.

"Alfred?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you supposed to care this much about me?"

He tilted his head curiously at Arthur. "Of course I am! It's my job!"

Arthur glanced at him sharply. "You've treated me more like a friend than like a job, Alfred. Now, I'm not going to pretend like I know the rules and customs of witness protection, but I'm fairly sure that it doesn't include befriending me."

"So you _don't_ want to be my friend?" Alfred asked tentatively.

Arthur sighed and turned to look out the window. "That isn't what I meant, Alfred, and you know it. I just don't want you to get in trouble for being too attached."

There was silence for a moment, then Al exhaled slowly. "You're probably right," he said quietly, very unlike his usual boisterous nature. "It's just… well, to be honest, I don't have that many friends. My job eats up all my time, and – did I ever tell you my parents were Marshals, too?" Arthur shook his head, although Alfred was staring out the windshield and didn't look to see his answer. "They were more on the 'tracking down runaway criminals' side of the job, and they were really good at it. A'course, that meant that they were never home. Miss Susan raised me more than them." He wiped one of his palms on his jeans before returning it to the steering wheel, keeping his eyes on the road even as Arthur turned around to watch his features move. "Even now that they're retired, they're never around. They took a cruise down to Mexico this week." They fell silent for a moment before Al shrugged and attempted his usual bright grin with only marginal success. "I told myself I'd never do that to anyone – kid, girlfriend, whatever – so I just stop it before it starts and keep myself from getting too close." He shrugged again. "I guess it's just nice to have someone to talk to - besides Matt, but he doesn't count."

Arthur frowned. "If it's so much stress and you're so lonely, why are you still doing this? This job, I mean."

Alfred laughed for real. "You kiddin'? Chasin' down bad guys, protectin' people _from_ the bad guys, guardin' evidence that can put a bad guy in jail – Marshals are as close to superheroes as you're gonna get without takin' a dip in some used uranium." Arthur let out a bark of laughter at the unexpected reply, and Al grinned at him.

They'd gotten to Shannon during their conversation, and Al parked the car in front of Matt's. Before they got out, Al clasped his hand on Arthur's shoulder and gave him the intense stare Arthur was almost used to enough to return it without blushing. "Don't you worry too much about me, Arthur," Al told him. "It's my job to worry about _you_."

* * *

According to the schedule Alfred and Arthur had picked up from the front desk of the golf course on their way out Friday morning, Arthur's first shift was on Monday. Ray was more than happy to give him a ride to the course and show him the setup of his new workplace before he said goodbye to Alabama for good and set out for Silicon Valley. He introduced Arthur to the other bartenders working at the time – a large black man named Cameron and a slighter man with a ponytail named Toris. Cameron was friendly enough for not knowing Arthur yet, but Toris immediately took Arthur under his wing and led him through the specifics of his new job, allowing Ray to slip away before Ivan made his way down to see how his new employee was settling in.

Arthur's new job wasn't too different from his previous bartending stint, so it wasn't long before he was caught up in mixing drinks for stuffy rich golfers and the haughty waiters from the small restaurant to one side of the giant main room where the bar service was. For the first time in weeks, he had something productive to do with a definite reward, and Arthur couldn't have been happier.

* * *

{A/N: Good news! I have finished writing this story. It's smooth sailing and regular updates from here. :D}


	6. well there's a line that you must toe

Chapter 5

In the Vargas family, life went on unbroken. It had no choice.

The Vargas's were a strange branch of the American mafia. They were started independently from the main web of families that had existed for years in the northern states by Lovino and his twin brother Feliciano's grandfather, who had come over from Rome with a posse of devoted followers. He had immediately started taking over other family branches that were almost dead and bringing them under his wing. He revived them, and in return, they paid their allegiance and their ten percent to him. Only known as Godfather Roma to everyone but his closest supporters, he soon led an empire that spread across the country and back across the ocean to Italy. For decades, Rome ruled the underworld.

Of course, like Rome, it couldn't last forever.

At the end of his days, Godfather Roma's empire started to collapse. It had gotten too big, and he could no longer control it by himself. Rebel families split back off, tired of his new, more modern methods and wanting to go back to the traditions that had been established since their ancestors had immigrated; their debtors began to laugh in their face; the police caught up with them. As the Vargas's fell, so did Roma's mental state. By the time he lay on his deathbed, he was barely aware of his surroundings and of the last fragments of his inner circle at his side. Each of his oldest grandsons clutched a hand that used to hold their world in its palm; now they were pale and brittle. He smiled at them, and then he passed.

In his will, written before his senility, he ignored long-established rules of democracy in the succession of Dons and named both of his grandsons his heirs. There was no power struggle between the two of them; the twins knew each other's strengths and weaknesses like their own, and knew what the other would do before he did it. The trouble came from everyone else.

The twins were young – barely of age – and, on the surface, inexperienced. Many people who had never heard of his grandsons, only of their age, balked at the idea of being led by children instead of the more favored underboss. Said underboss, however, backed up the twins' claim to the Don, choosing to stay in his position as a solid, strangely German barrier between the soldiers and them. Even with this endorsement, the twins lost favor, and the Vargas family shrank continuously.

Understandably, the twins and their supporters were frantic to keep this from happening. They had too much in their pasts to allow for their protection and their family to fall. The twins had to prove themselves worthy of following in their grandfather's footsteps as the most influential mafia boss in North America; their loyalists had to prove that they were still a force to be reckoned with and not laughed at. So began the desperate struggle to reestablish their reputation.

There was no job that the Vargas's were unwilling to take. They risked it all every day on the most outrageous and dangerous of organized crime, covering the police scanners in hopes of taking and keeping the attention of their deserters. It worked, but only slowly. Most still weren't convinced that these two were for real, that they wouldn't flake out at the first sign of danger to themselves, that they would get bored and run away.

They needed to make a statement.

* * *

In the next month, Arthur turned out to be very good at his job. It was a full-time deal (although Cameron confided in him after they got more accustomed to each other that there was a much more even distribution of hours now than there had been with Ray on the payroll), so he wasn't suffering from mind-numbing boredom anymore. After Toris learned that Arthur was relying on the goodwill of the Sugar Maple patrons to get to work and Jake to get home, he insisted that he would drive him – even when Toris wasn't scheduled. Luckily for Arthur's conscience, Ivan noticed this new development and scheduled the two of them together whenever he could.

Alfred and Arthur kept up their nightly phone conversations. Unless Al was out on a federal mission. They managed to make contact at least long enough to ask about their day every evening. As they grew closer to each other, the conversations grew longer and the subjects grew broader, turning into debates and 'heated discussions' at times, but never so intense or passionate that a snort of laughter from Alfred or an overly British turn of phrase from Arthur to turn their tone silly again.

Matthew and Katyusha stopped treating him like a guest and more like the distant relative from his cover story after Thanksgiving. Arthur insisted on paying at least some rent, even though the Marshals were compensating them from the rent money set aside of Arthur's planned apartment. Matt gave in after heavy pressure from Arthur, but he used it to keep the house's alcohol supplies in full stock. Arthur couldn't quite bring himself to object, since the two of them were its only users. Katyusha used the leftovers to supplement the grocery fund. (Arthur did end up gaining a little bit of weight, but 'only what was good for him', in Katyusha's words. The cost of living in New York hadn't been kind to his health.)

Then, just before Christmas, a cold front breezed through the Southeast and gave them the first snow day of the season.

* * *

"Ain't this the _greatest_?" Alfred cried as he exploded out of Matt's back door into the fenced-in backyard . Arthur followed him and glanced around, unimpressed.

"This is what you call snow down here?" It was still falling lightly, but there was only enough on the ground to mostly cover the grass. "This is rather pathetic."

Al just laughed, getting down on one knee to shove some of it together into a grass-covered snowball. "When you live down here, Artie, you take what you can get." Arthur made a face at the nickname, but had given that fight up as a lost cause a long time ago. He walked across the lawn to the flowerbeds running the length of the fence to shake off the snow from the plants that were actually above the ground, not noticing the crunch of slow footsteps behind him until Alfred pounced, shoving his dirty snowball down the back of his shirt.

Arthur jumped with a high-pitched squeal, shaking the snow from his shirt as he took chase after a cackling Alfred, throwing curses and small handfuls of snow at him that he easily dodged. With a snarl, Arthur jumped forward and tackled Al to the ground, one knee landing on the back of his thigh and his hands pinning back Alfred's arms. The Marshal lost his breath for a millisecond before training and instinct kinked in and he flipped back, pinning Arthur to the ground and driving the air from his lungs. He rolled over and straddled Arthur's stomach, holding his wrists to the ground with ease. They stared at each other for a moment, chests heaving, before simultaneously dissolving into breathless giggles. Al pitched forward to rest his forehead on the ground by Arthur's shoulder, shaking from laughter and losing his hold on his motor skills.

When they finally calmed down to giddy smiles, Alfred sat up halfway, grinning down at his prisoner from a few inches away.

Without thinking and high on endorphins, Arthur pulled up and kissed him on the cheek.

Alfred jumped back like he'd been poked with a firebrand, scrambling to his feet and staring at Arthur in horror as he pressed a hand to his cheek. "No. Nononono. _No_, this isn't- this _can't_ be – augh!" he pulled at his hair and paced around the yard, talking to the air while Arthur watched him from the ground, confused and hurt. "What's the first thing they tell me? Don't get attached. And what do I do?" His ranting descended into unintelligible angry mutterings, staring at the ground and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Is it because I'm a guy?" Arthur said in a small voice from the ground. Alfred whipped his head around to look at Arthur in surprise.

"What? No! _God _no!" He took a deep breath, then let it out in a heavy sigh and walked over to help Arthur to a standing position. "It's nothing to do with you, Arthur – Arthur, I'd date you in a heartbeat if I could," he said with a hesitant grin. He held onto Arthur's hands his gaze as his eyes pleaded with him. "But I _can't_"

Arthur blinked at him, face turning pink from the cold and the confession. "Well why not?"

Alfred smiled wider. "Well, first off, that's just not something you _do_ as a Marshal – it's like 'don't date a coworker', y'know? Don't date your assignment." Arthur started to rub a circle into the back of Alfred's hand, and he sighed. "And what d'ya think would happen when you got your summons and had to go back up north? 'Cause no matter what, I'd still probably stay here. My _everything's_ here, I couldn't pick it all up and move on a whim, and you'd probably never want to live through an Alabama summer if you ever got a taste of 'em." He tried to grin, then stared down at the stitching on Arthur's coat, shifting on his feet as Arthur watched his face change. "Plus, I just… I just _can't_." He bit his lip, and Arthur's will crumbled.

"Oh, love," he breathed, hugging Alfred close. Al responded instantly, arms coming up around Arthur's waist and head dropping to rest on his shoulder. "It's okay, it's okay, I understand," he said soothingly, rubbing a hand up and down Alfred's back and standing on his toes to rest his chin on Alfred's hunched shoulder. "I'm not going to push you into anything, especially if you're not ready."

Alfred sighed and sagged against, Arthur, holding him tightly. "Thanks." Arthur sighed, letting his eyes slip closed and absorbing the other's presence. Then he snapped them back open and stepped away.

"If we're going to keep this from happening, we're going to have to set some ground rules," he said clearly, straightening his clothes and avoiding Alfred's eyes intently. "No more touching, no more flirting, no more anything beyond just friends. Agreed?"

Alfred blinked, then smiled broadly. "Agreed. Now come on, I bet Kat's already got the fire up and the hot chocolate ready," he said, waving Arthur back inside.

* * *

That agreement barely lasted the week.

Susan hosted a New Year's Eve party for Shannon at her diner, marking all her alcohol half off for the night and turning the TV behind the bar to the New York ball dropping – although it was impossible to hear it over the crowd. By the time midnight on the East Coast rolled around, very few people were sober enough to care who they bumped into or what they were drinking, much less notice Arthur and Alfred drag each other down the back corridor towards the bathrooms.

Arthur grunted as he was pushed against the first scrap of wall that wasn't covered in memorabilia, shifting into a moan when Alfred's body followed his, falling a little too harshly, but not unpleasantly. "I thought we weren't going to do this," Arthur gasped as Alfred kissed the side of his neck wetly, arching back against the wall he was pressed onto as whiskey-tainted breath fanned across his skin.

Alfred chuckled and lifted one of Arthur's legs to wrap around his back. "Well, see, now, I've been thinkin'," he mumbled into Arthur's skin. "If we both want it, and we both don't care 'bout the consequences – what's the harm in a lil' screwin' around?" He pulled back to grin at Arthur through glazed eyes, who cupped his face and ran his thumb along his lower lip.

"When you put it that way, I don't see any harm at all," he said in a low tone, giving Al his best drunken seductive look. "What about the Marshal code and whatnot?"

"Fuck the Marshal code," Al said vehemently, making Arthur giggle and pull him down to kiss him sloppily. Alfred responded by lifting Arthur clear off the ground and slamming him into the wall. Arthur gasped in surprise, but Al's tongue in his mouth kept him from breaking the kiss, and he groaned instead, locking his ankles together at the small of Alfred's back.

When they parted for air, Arthur's hands were tangled in Alfred's hair and Alfred's were halfway up the back of his shirt. He rubbed his cheek against Alfred's and hummed. "Fuck sounds so nice when you say it," he purred again, and Alfred shivered.

"Okay. Fuck. Okay." He relaxed his hold on Arthur and stepped back enough for him to get his feet on the ground. Arthur took his hands and walked backwards away from the party, eyes half-lidded and staring at Alfred. They fell into the first door they found, the heavy _thunk _of a deadbolt closing them off from the world a moment later.

* * *

{A/N: Look! Things happening! Explanations! Making out! :DDDD

I am so close to finishing this I can taste it}


	7. I'm still stinking of sin

Chapter 6

Sergio Sebastiani came to slow consciousness to find himself strapped to a metal chair in a dark room, a single light bulb hanging over his head. He pulled at his arms and legs, rocking the chair and trying to scream for help only to be muffled by the duct tape over his mouth. A large hand clamped on the back of his neck, holding him in place. He froze, eyes wide and forced straight ahead by the hand.

"Oh, good, you're awake," a light voice said from the dark in front of him. Shoes clacked on concrete, but the owner of the voice kept to the shadows. "I need to talk to you."

He tried to shake his head and hands frantically, words muffle behind the tape. The voice sighed. "Ludwig, please." Ludwig. Vargas's underboss. Oh, Sergio was in deep shit now.

When the tape was ripped off his face by the man standing behind him, he immediately launched into babbling. "Please don't-a hurt me, I dunno nuttin', innocent as a tree frog, I swear-a!"

"Tree frog? That's funny, since tree frogs are usually poisonous." The voice paced a semicircle just out of the ring of light. Sergio started hyperventilating. "Don't worry, Sergio, you're not in trouble." He stilled, blinking in surprise.

"I'm-a not?"

The voice laughed, much too innocent for the situation. "No. Well, not yet." The voice paused. "We have a job for you, little thief."

Sergio's face slowly broke into a grin, his earlier anxiety gone at the mention of his work. "Oh really?"

"Ludwig, please." The hand gripping his neck let go to slap his head hard, then went back to his neck. "I don't need you cocky on this," the voice continued. "This is important." The feet stopped at Sergio's left and turned back. The room fell silent for a few minutes as the feet paced and Sergio waited to be spoken to. He jumped as the voice laughed suddenly. "Look, Ludwig, he's learning! Can we keep him now?"

"Veneziano," a bass voice grumbled from above Sergio's head, startling him as much as the laughter. The voice in the shadows sighed.

"Oh, all right, cut to the chase, get to the point, I understand." The pacing stopped directly in front of him. "I need you to steal evidence from the police."

A pause. "Is that-a all?" Another slap to the back of his head. "_Ow!_"

The voice just chuckled. "Now, now, Ludwig, we must be nice to our newest soldier," he chided lightly. Sergio froze.

"What."

"Well, obviously we can't let you go switching sides like you usually do," the voice answered lightheartedly. "You'll get the details when you wake up."

"Wake up?"

The voice laughed again, ignoring his question. "Don't worry, Sergio," he said as Ludwig chopped down into the junction of his neck and shoulder, making his eyes roll back as he slumped forward in unconsciousness, only held up by his bindings. The owner of the voice finally stepped into the light, showing a slight man with floppy auburn hair smiling at the knocked out teenager in front of him.

"You'll have plenty of work to do."

* * *

The next day, Arthur woke up with a start on Susan's couch, wearing the clothes he'd worn the night before and curled up in Alfred's arms with his back against his slowly moving bare chest. Someone had put two blankets over them, and Arthur closed his eyes and smiled as he burrowed back into his bubble of warmth, resting his arms over Al's under the blankets, stroking his linked fingers on his stomach. Behind him, Alfred sighed in his sleep and buried his face in Arthur's neck, and Arthur let himself close his eyes and go back to sleep.

After drifting in and out of consciousness for a while, he woke fully to hear the sounds of breakfast coming from the kitchen. He blinked his eyes open, then squinted against the dim light as his head protested the new development. Alfred hadn't moved other than to pull him closer and tangle their legs together, chin on his shoulder.

Arthur let himself fall into the warmth of Al's embrace for a long moment, then carefully pulled himself free of his clinging, sitting on the edge of the couch and smiling fondly down at him, carding a hand through his hair down to rest it against his cheek, running his thumb along his lower lip. Alfred continued to sleep like a rock, clutching an armful of blanket instead of Arthur, snoring lightly through his partially open mouth.

Arthur stood and walked into the kitchen, tripping over the back cushions thrown off the couch to make room for two grown men while rubbing at his eyes. He found Susan frying a pan of bacon at her stove, a steaming cup of something in one hand and a fork in the other that she used to flip the bacon. She looked up at the sound of Arthur coming in and immediately turned to the coffeepot, pouring him a cup and serving it to him black.

"Have a nice time last night?" she asked quietly, smiling slyly. He grumbled and sat down at the table, glaring into his coffee. He took a gulp of it and nearly gagged, but managed to choke it down.

"Oh, bloody hell," he gasped, making a myriad of faces as he set the mug down. "How do Americans _like_ this stuff?"

Susan laughed, taking the last piece off the frying pan before turning off the eye and joining him at the table, setting the plate down between them. "It's an acquired taste, I've heard," she said, sipping at her own cup. "Besides, it usually doesn't taste like this."

Arthur snorted in disbelief, but didn't say anything as he munched on her professionally-made bacon. They sat in comfortable silence as Arthur nursed his hangover and Susan hummed a nonsense tune that eventually dissolved into a Disney medley.

"So," she said when the bacon was done, standing to fetch the coffeepot and refill their mugs. "You gonna tell me why I came upstairs this morning to find you and Alfred spooning on my sofa?"

Arthur blushed furiously and stared at his now full coffee cup. "I'll clean your men's room later today, if it makes it better," he mumbled, weaving his fingers together nervously.

She blinked, then started laughing, startling Arthur. She took off her glasses to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Well, I say you two deserve a little happiness," she said with a smile, adjusting her oval frames on her nose. "Just don't do it in my diner again, okay?"

He nodded, face beet red. She knocked back a large gulp of coffee, then stood and rested her hand on his shoulder. He smiled up at her weakly, and her eyes softened in reply.

"Now, go wake up your loverboy while I fry up the rest of this pig," she ordered, jerking her head in the direction of her living room. He laughed shakily and obeyed.

* * *

Alfred didn't want to wake up and protested Arthur's efforts to make him, rolling over and burying his face in the junction of couch frame and cushions. After five minutes of shaking, coaxing, and yelling, Arthur gave in and gathered his courage, then bent down and kissed the exposed back of Alfred's neck.

_That_ made Al shoot up like a bullet, eyes wide and startled and arms flailing under the blankets. Arthur sat back from his struggles and smirked even as his cheeks flushed. Al stopped flailing quickly enough, though, and sat up straight, staring at Arthur in slight horror.

"Last night happened, didn't it?" he asked. Arthur nodded, and Al groaned, flopping back against the couch hard enough to bounce a little and clenched his eyes shut, tugging at his hair. "This is _bad_," he moaned, dragging his hands down his face. Arthur frowned.

"What happened to 'Fuck the Marshal code'?" Arthur asked, hating how weak he sounded and crossing his arms over his chest and scowling to make up for it. Al looked up at him, then rolled over and moaned into the cushions. Arthur huffed and scowled further.

Alfred pushed himself to his hands and knees, then sat back on his calves. "It's too early for this," he mumbled, crawling around Arthur to stand on the floor. He stretched with a loud yawn, almost hitting Arthur in the head, then tasted his mouth with a grimace. "Can we talk about this later?" he asked, looking down at Arthur, then at himself curiously. His lip twitched. "When I have a shirt on would be nice."

Arthur stared him down from his position on the couch, but after several seconds of obliviously bleary grinning from Al, he sighed and stood to push him in the direction of the kitchen. "Fine, but only because I want to see your face when you taste Susan's coffee," he grumbled.

At that, Alfred tensed. "Shit, she made her hangover coffee, didn't she?"

Arthur smirked, but was saved from answering by Susan herself greeting them too cheerily again with Alfred's old mug with President Obama on it. "You bet your life she did," she replied, handing it to him. He made a face at the black liquid and Arthur laughed a little harsher than necessary, pushing him further towards the kitchen table.

"Drink up, lad." Al stuck his tongue out at him, but obeyed, his exaggerated gagging enough to make them all laugh and dispel the lingering awkwardness in the air.

* * *

They didn't get a chance to talk until much later, after being conscripted by Susan to help her clean up the bar (both restrooms included). Finally, Alfred and Arthur got into Al's car and pulled out of the parking lot, but instead of turning right to Matt's at the crossroads, Al turned left towards civilization. Arthur gave him a pointed look to which Al shrugged in response.

"I thought, if we're gonna be sleepin' together, we might as well talk at my place," he said airily, although he glanced nervously between Arthur and the road. Arthur flushed.

"Well, when you put it that way." Al gave a little laugh, then they fell silent for the rest of the ride.

* * *

When they got to Alfred's place – a small, two-story house on a dead-end road of small, two-story houses – he made them hot chocolate with milk heated up in the microwave before they sat down at the kitchen table to talk.

As Arthur expected, Alfred's house was a pigsty, with papers, clothes, and dirty dishes on every surface. However, he could also tell it was the clutter of someone who never has time to clean rather than someone too lazy to clean from personal experience, so he let it slide without comment. He helped him push some of the bills piled on the majority of the kitchen table to the side enough for them to sit down together, carefully not touching, drinks in their hand and eyes on the wood stain of the tabletop.

An increasingly awkward silence fell as it really hit Arthur that he had slept with his Marshal last night.

"We shouldn't take this too seriously," he said quietly to his hot chocolate when the silence became too much to bear.

"Hmm?"

"If we – we _can't_ let this go too far, for both of our sakes," he continued. "I don't want you to lose your job over me. That's just not right. So, can we just… keep it to occasional sex?" He barreled over Alfred's intake of breath to speak, "I mean, it's not that I don't like you – bloody hell, Alfred, I _like_ you – but it's just-" Al clapped his hand over Arthur's mouth, cutting him off before he could start babbling. Arthur glared at him.

Alfred smiled. "No need to get your panties in a wad, Arthur, I get it." Arthur scowled further and stuck his tongue out to lick Al's palm. Instead of the expected curse and retreat, though, Al just snorted. "Really, Artie? Tryin' this trick after last night?" Arthur's face burned and he shoved Alfred's hand away with both of his, turning away from him and crossing his arms and legs with a huff. Behind him, he heard Al chuckle, then drain the last of his drink and stand up.

"Well, if friends with benefits is what ya want, that's what we'll try," he said, stretching and yawning. Arthur looked over his shoulder at his smiling face, then sighed in defeat and stood as well just as Al stepped forward to pull him to his feet, resulting in an awkward invasion of personal bubbles and bumping elbows. Arthur stepped on his pants leg in his attempt to _get away_, and Al caught his upper arms automatically to keep him from falling. They blinked at each other for a long moment, breathless.

"Wanna watch a movie?" Alfred asked, grinning goofily.

Arthur shook his head of its blankness and snorted, but couldn't keep himself from smiling. "Can I take a shower first?"

* * *

Arthur felt immeasurably better after taking a shower and brushing his teeth with the extra toothbrush in Al's medicine cabinet. He let Alfred pick out an old action movie as he curled up in the afghan on the couch, choosing not to comment when he sat down a little too close to him with a bag of popcorn and flipped off the lights.

By the time they were halfway into the movie, Arthur had been pulled into Al's side and was sharing his blanket with him, popcorn abandoned on the floor and attention focused wholly on the movie. The arm around his waist was heavy and warm, and the clothes he had borrowed from Al while what he'd worn last night was in the wash were slightly too big but comfortable. He closed his eyes and sighed, smiling and sinking further against Alfred.

If you wanna go to sleep, that's fine," Al murmured, carefully leaning his cheek on top of Arthur's head. Arthur hummed in reply and pulled the arm further around him.

The moment was shattered by Al's phone vibrating in the pocket under Arthur's hip. He groaned, but sat up and away so Alfred could answer it, frowning at the interruption. Alfred smiled sheepishly and flipped it open.

"Yellow." A deep, authoritarian voice growled indistinguishable words on the other end, and Al's expression grew serious. "Okay, sir, I'm on my way." He stood up with an exaggerated stretch, pausing the movie and turning off the TV before he stepped carefully across his den to the dining table where his shoulder gun holster and suit jacket were thrown onto a chair. "We got a lead on a murder fugitive from Mobile that made his way up here," he explained while he threw his shoulder holster on, clipping it on with the quick ease of practice before slinging his jacket on over it. "Tie, tie, where's a tie," he muttered to himself, digging around the mess on the table.

Arthur threw off the blanket and fished out the tie he saw in the shadow of a potted cactus, looping it around Alfred's neck and knotting it before he could protest. "What do you want me to do?" Arthur asked, patting down the knot and backing away awkwardly.

Alfred cursed as he jumped around on one foot, tying the shoe on the other. Arthur quickly reached out and held his shoulder to stabilize him. "Can you call Matt and ask him to come pick you up? I don't really wanna leave ya here, but duty calls, y'know?" He managed to get both shoes on and tied well enough to walk without tripping, smiling feebly at Arthur.

Arthur gave him his best smile. "I know." He reached up on his toes to kiss his cheek. "Don't get yourself killed out there."

Ignoring his red cheeks, Al laughed raucously and pinned his badge to his belt loop. "Takes more than an off his rocker killer to do me in, _Mom_." He patted Arthur on the arm a few times stiffly, then ran through his house and out the front door.

* * *

Katyusha picked up Matt's phone when he called a little while later (when he was back in his own, fresh-from-the-dryer clothes). After a brief episode where she fussed over him, his disappearing act, and his general well-being, she insisted on coming over right away and 'don't you move, young man, I'll be right there' – hanging up before he could protest that he was older than her by a good margin, thank you _very_ much.

True to her word, she knocked at Alfred's door not fifteen minutes later, halfway into one of the panic attacks Arthur had come to learn were part of her existence. They locked the house with the spare key hidden under the stone turtle by the front steps, and after Arthur checked to make sure he had everything he had arrived with, got in the car and drove back home.

By the time they were out of Alfred's neighborhood, Katyusha had calmed down enough to start asking questions beyond rhetorical.

"So, young man," she said, stopping at a stop sign briefly before turning left onto a more main road. "I believe the Americans say, 'spill'."

Arthur chuckled, deciding to let her new name for him slide for now. "What about?"

She raised her eyebrows in reply, which just made him chuckle harder. "Right, silly question." He stared at his feet, sliding down a little in the passenger seat. "It's just…" He trailed off again, fighting with his words. Katyusha waited patiently for him to get his thoughts in line. "Have you ever wanted something that you couldn't have so much it burns?"

"Of course I have, everyone has," she answered instantly. "What does this have to do with Alfred?" Arthur fell silent, and Katyusha understood. "Oh. I see." They drove in silence for several minutes, Arthur staring into the space by his feet and Katyusha chewing softly on her lower lip. "Alfred is a sweet man, but he does not always think before he acts," she said after a moment, jerking Arthur from his mind.

"What?"

Her eyebrows furrowed slightly. "If you're going to be doing anything of that nature with him, you must learn to have a thick skin, or both of you will be sad, lonely, and misunderstood." She smiled at him, dimples in her cheeks showing. "Take it from his sister by law."

He cocked his head to the side, perplexed. "But Alfred and Matthew aren't related, are they?"

She shrugged. "Maybe not by blood, young man, but there are more ways to be brothers than by sharing a parent." He let out a small 'ah' and nodded in understanding. "Do be careful, though. For both of your happiness."

He pulled a leg up to his chest and sighed, resting his chin on his knee. "I'll do my best."


	8. take the law into your hands

Chapter 7

Francis and Gil crashed into the back alley, laughing wildly and stumbling into each other and their surroundings. Gil fell against the wall of the bar they'd just been kicked out of, downing half his remaining beer in one go before sliding to the ground, back against the wall and legs bent inelegantly in front of him. Francis slipped down next to him, stealing the beer and drinking the rest.

"Jus' not th'same wi'out Toni," Gil slurred, leaning against Francis's side. The blonde nodded, throwing the empty beer bottle in the dumpster next to him (naturally he missed, glass shattering against the metal and spraying out into the alley).

They fell silent for a long while, Francis almost passing out on Gil's shoulder while the albino stared up at the sliver of dark sky visible through the buildings, breath condensing in the cold air.

"Hey, Frankie?"

It was a testament to how drunk Francis was that he didn't start a fight over the nickname, but instead just moaned and tried to pull himself from unconsciousness. "_Quoi_?"

"How come you never whine about that- that- that-" He waved his hand in the air uselessly as he tried to find the right word. "That guy, that- _editing_ guy! Yeah, that editor!"

Francis pushed against the wall to sit a little straighter. "Arthur?"

"Yeah, him!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "You never complain 'bout him 'nymore!" Gil gave a giant shrug and closed his eyes against the flickering lamplight over the bar's back door. "Jus'- us'ta be all ya talked 'bout when we're wasted like this, and few months ago- _poof_!" He mimed an explosion with his hands, falling forward with the momentum, then slumping backwards. "No more pissy roas' beef."

Francis groaned, pitching sideways and sprawling sideways across Gil melodramatically. "Ah, Arthur, _mon cher tyran_," he sighed. "He left me for a murderer."

Gil roared with laughter, shoving at Francis until he rolled onto his back, splayed over his shins. "You're pissed, man."

"That is true, but I'm serious." He sighed, putting his head to his forehead melodramatically. "He saw a _muertre_ they took him away – without even asking me!" He sighed again, drawing it out into a song. "My new editor is nowhere _near_ as entertaining to play with as my Arthur was."

Gil laughed even as his expression grew puzzled. "Arthur who?"

"Arthur, Arthur _Kirkland_, my lovely pet with the intolerable temper," he answered, throwing his head back in distress and nearly cracking his skull on the pavement. He cursed in French as Gil doubled over laughing, then pulled his legs from under Francis's prone form and wobbled to his feet.

"C'mon, lezgo hook some chicks," he ordered, pulling his friend to his feet. Francis perked up at the mention of women and completely forgot about the conversation about his old editor.

* * *

Unlike his mother and wife, Matthew did not take kindly to the news that Arthur had slept with his childhood best friend/virtual brother.

"I didn't even know he was _gay_," he moaned, sagging onto his kitchen table and clutching his head in his hands. Katyusha rubbed his shoulder in soothing circles, rolling her eyes behind his back and smiling apologetically at Arthur, who was leaning on the empty door frame to the hall.

"Matthew, darling, he owns _Brokeback Mountain_ as well as _The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_," Katyusha said softly. Arthur's snort was luckily drowned out by her husband's pathetic wail.

He gave up on holding his head in his hands and planted his forehead on the tabletop. "But he's had _girlfriends_ before," he whined, muffled by the table to just above coherency.

"He's also ambidextrous," Arthur said from the sidelines. Matthew sobbed dramatically, and Arthur was hit with a sudden, intense reminder of his old client, Francis.

Arthur shifted on his feet and willed the homesick pang from his chest (for goodness sake, he didn't even _like_ the man), and distracted himself by saying, "Look, if it bothers you that much, I'll just go." He pushed away from the door frame and turned to go back into the hallway, but Matt called him back before he could even take one step.

"No, no, it's not you, Arthur," he assured him, lifting his head from the table and sitting back, sighing and running his hands through his too-long hair. "It's just, thinking about Al having sex is like thinking about my _mom_ having sex. It's – ugh." He shuddered, then sent a desperate look to Arthur, who nodded in understanding with a slight smile.

Katyusha chuckled and straightened from her slight crouch at her husband's side to slide into a chair. "Now, Matthew, we have to be supportive of Alfred – and Arthur, of course," she added with a nod and smile to Arthur. "If we don't, no one will."

Matt caught the subtle chastising from his wife and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting at the table. "I didn't say I was gonna _reject_ him – it's just _weird_." Arthur snorted, but smiled. It certainly wasn't the worst comment he'd gotten over the years about his sexuality.

Matthew sprawled back in his chair, head tilted backward and arms dangling. Katyusha and Arthur exchanged another amused look out of his sight.

After a few calming breaths and a count to ten, he sat back up properly. "I'm okay, I'm okay, really," he said, giving Arthur a weak smile. "But can I ask you a favor, man to man?"

Arthur laughed. "Of course. Anything."

"Please, for the love of _God_ and everything sacred in this world, _please_ don't have sex in my house."

Arthur's face burned as he coughed into his hand, and Katyusha slapped her husband's arm for his crassness. Matt held up his hands in defense, shying away from her. "Hey, you were thinking it, too!"

Arthur figured that now would be a good time to leave the room.

* * *

At the end of that week, Alfred showed up at the golf course at the end of Arthur's shift, charming the evening bartenders (two recent college graduates who were often the only women around) and taking Arthur off of Toris's hands with a friendly wink and a guiding hand in the middle of Arthur's back.

When they got into Al's car (parked in the fire lane, once again) and drove away, Arthur finally asked him just what the hell he thought he was doing.

Al just laughed, turning out of the golf course onto the main road. "Well, I was jus' thinkin' we could go out and do somethin' fun. Figured that you might be gettin' a little bored by now."

Arthur frowned slightly. He was right, oddly enough – Arthur would have never pegged himself as the kind of person who got bored easily, but the sudden switch from the metropolis of the world to the middle of nowhere made him realize how short and fleeting his attention span had become. It was concerning, though, in that this outing of his sounded a lot like a date.

"And what if I don't want to go?" he asked after a few minutes, raising his eyebrows in a question. Alfred grinned.

"Not much of a choice, m'afraid. You're changing and we're going." He parked with a lurch in front of Matthew's house. "Now get a'fore I hafta change you m'self." Arthur fumbled the door handle open and hurried inside, Al's laughter following him through the open door.

* * *

Several hours later, the two of them left the movie theater with the rest of the audience. They bumped shoulders as they walked back to the car and talked about the action blockbuster.

"Did you _see_ the way he took out all those bad guys at the end? Ka-_blam!_" Alfred said excitedly, gesturing along with his narration while Arthur smiled and sighed at his antics.

"Yes, Alfred, I saw that. I was right beside you, after all." Al smiled and shrugged a light apology, unlocking his car when they got in range of his remote control. He clicked the unlock button compulsively until Arthur snatched it from his hand to keep it from soundly like the alarm was going off. There was a brief struggle for control of the clicker until a car trying to get by honked at them and made them dash to the sidewalk to avoid getting hit. They both laughed themselves breathless, bent over on the side of the road, then managed to compose themselves and race to the car like children only to find that the car's lock system had timed out and they had to unlock it again.

Finally, they got the doors open and climbed inside, still laughing lightly. Arthur immediately turned on his seat warmer as Alfred backed out of the parking space, merging in with the Friday night at the movies parking lot crowd and taking the shortcut to the main road. Arthur sighed and sat back in his seat, smiling and utterly content.

"So, have a good time?" Al asked. Arthur glanced over to find Alfred grinning at him.

Arthur nodded. "Yes, actually, I did."

Al's grin grew. "Good. That's good." There was a pause as Al drove through the back roads of the suburbs, the radio playing quietly to fill the void. Al sang along with the pop mix, humming when he didn't know the words. Arthur couldn't stop smiling, so he ducked his head to hide the lower half of his face in his scarf.

"Thank you," he murmured after several songs and several residential miles of stop signs. Al smiled broadly, cutting himself off in the middle of a lyric.

"Aww, now, it wasn't any trouble, Arthur," he drawled, driving over a lighted highway overpass before plunging them back into darkness. Arthur smiled in response, even though he knew Al couldn't see it.

Arthur looked over at Alfred without turning his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling as the Marshal's voice cracked when he attempted to follow the female singer's exploration of the octave above the treble clef. Al grinned sheepishly at him as a streetlamp flashed by, lighting up the frizz he could never quite tame around his head and glinting past his glasses into his eyes. Arthur's own eyes widened slightly.

"Pull over."

Alfred's eyebrows furrowed even as he automatically slowed down. "What?"

"You heard what I said."

"But- why?"

"_Just do it already_!"

"Fine, fine, no need to get shouty," he mumbled, slowing to a crawl and parking in one of the gravel pull-offs that littered backcountry roads. He turned off the car and faced Arthur, mouth open to begin interrogation, but was cut off by Arthur grabbing his face and pulling him down to kiss him, heavy and hungry. He yelped in surprise, eyes wide and startled, but Arthur wouldn't let him go, and he quickly relaxed into the kiss, shifting his body as far sideways as it could go in the front seat of his car. While Alfred distractedly tried to maneuver around the gear shift and the cup holders, Arthur kissed him with all the force and skill he'd ever wanted to use, pressing his tongue into Al's mouth and weaving his fingers in his hair.

Alfred broke away forcefully, prying away Arthur's hands from his scalp so he could pant, "Backseat." Arthur nodded and climbed back between the seats, ever grateful for Alfred's habit of keeping the backseat of his small SUV folded forwards as he stretched back, shoving aside a fishing rod and a pile of jackets while Al pulled the key from the ignition and turned off his headlights before following, flopping down on top of Arthur with a huff. Arthur decided to put off scolding him for being stupid in favor of responding to the frantic and sloppy mouth on his, gripping him close with all his limbs, trying to keep him under control while savoring every moment.

It wasn't long before he worked Alfred's jacket off his shoulders and his shirt over his head, gliding his hands over the well built torso he'd been too drunk to properly appreciate last time this had happened. Alfred groaned, shifting down to drag his teeth over the skin of Arthur's neck. Arthur gasped and tilted his head to the side, exposing more of his neck and under his jaw to Alfred, arching up into Al's chest and stomach.

Al grinned wickedly into his collar, reveling in every small gasp and moan he dragged out of Arthur, not noticing that he was vocal enough to match.

* * *

It was after the fact, when the sweat on their skin had dried and the windows had started to lose their fog – but not enough for them to want to move from each other's arms – that there was a hard rap at the back window.

Alfred sprang upright, hitting his head on the roof with a _whack_ that made Arthur wince. He ignored his possible concussion, though, scrambling to pull his pants back up and throw a shirt on (it happened to be Arthur's and slightly too small, but that wasn't important), before shoving Arthur down into the foot space of the back seat, cursing up a storm under his breath as he crawled back to where the rapping was becoming more impatient and a tall shadow was visible through the smoky glass.

He popped open the glass part of his trunk door, lifting it open to show an imposing and very upset-looking police officer. Instead of cowering away or being intimidated, though, Alfred just breathed a sigh of relief and grinned at him.

"Officer Ox! What a surprise, seein' ya all the way out here!" he said loudly, leaning out the window and letting his arms dangle in the cold air that was seeping into the humid interior of the car. Behind the hulking officer, he saw Shannon's one patrol car idling, the other officer in the passenger seat with his feet on the dashboard, playing with his phone.

The officer grunted a greeting, bending down a little to peer into the depths of the car when Arthur's furious cursing registered. Arthur climbed out of the hole he'd been shoved into, Alfred's leather jacket zipped up over his chest and pants unzipped, face red even in the darkness. He avoided the police officer's icy gaze and kicked Alfred hard in the rear, making him jerk forward and almost fall out of the car.

"Hey! Watch it!"

"_You_ watch it, you miserable buffoon!" he snapped, climbing back into the passenger's seat with a huff and crossing his arms over his chest. Al pulled himself back up and offered an apologetic grin to the unfazed officer.

"Sorry 'bout that, Officer Ox. That's Arthur - y'know, the witness protection guy," he explained, jerking his thumb in the direction of the blond hair sticking out over the headrest. "He's easily irritated."

Arthur whipped around to look between the seats, face still flushed, and yelled, "Would you just _shut up_?"

Alfred laughed. "Not a chance, dollface."

He barely ducked out of the path of a fiercely thrown shoe, which flew out of the open window and rolled across the gravel. The police officer went and picked it up for Alfred, who smiled as he took it back and said, "_Gracias, mi amigo_." He looked back over his shoulder, straining awkwardly to shout at Arthur, who had turned back to face the front of the car and had hunched down in the shadow of the seat, "Hey Arthur! Aren't ya gonna say hi to one of the guys keepin' your ass safe?"

A moment of deliberation; then, Arthur leaned around the edge of his chair and nodded once at the officer. "Hello." He drew back out of sight, and Al sighed in exasperation.

"Brits. What can ya do with 'em?" he sighed and shrugged to the officer. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, which did nothing to weaken his intimidating aura. There was a loud 'hmph' from the front seat, but Arthur decided to keep his silence this time. Al propped his chin on his hand and batted his eyelashes at the policeman. "So, what seems to be the problem, Officer?"

The smile on his face stopped tugging, and he ordered in the deepest voice Arthur had ever heard, "Go home, Alfred."

Alfred grinned and pushed away from the door, reaching up to the handle on the window."Will do. Take care! Say hi to Tino for me!" He closed the window after the policeman nodded tersely and began to walk back to his patrol car, his partner sitting up straight again.

Once the police car had driven past them and out of sight, Alfred climbed back up to the front and resettled in the driver's seat.

"Well."

"I hate you so much right now."

Alfred laughed, resting his head on the steering wheel. "Now, Arthur, don't be like that," he said when he got himself under control, reaching over and ruffling his hair for a second before he got shoved away. Unperturbed, he leaned over and wrapped Arthur in a bear hug, ignoring Arthur's sputtering and pushing while laughing in his ear.

Finally, Arthur succeeded in shaking him off, panting and flushing again as he straightened his clothes out, pulling the jacket down over the flash of skin showing above his jeans. "I still hate you," he grumbled. "Could you have been any more obvious about what we were doing?"

"Huh?" Alfred blinked obliviously; Arthur sent him a sharp look, and comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh, you mean with Officer Ox?" He laughed, and Arthur scowled ferociously. "Sweetheart, they don't care about that. Shit, Ox's _married_ to one of the other officers. You met him that time we went to the station, actually."

Arthur blinked in confusion at him. "You mean the crazy one with the weird hair?"

Alfred snorted, then giggled, then burst into uncontrollable laughter, losing muscle control and draping over his steering wheel while Arthur watched him in bewilderment.

"What?"

Alfred sucked in a huge breath, then leaned over and gave Arthur an overdone kiss on the cheek before fishing his keys out from behind him in his seat and starting the car. "Sometimes you're just too cute."

Arthur sputtered and hit him in the arm repeatedly as he laughed again and pulled back onto the road.


	9. all those phantoms and those shades

Chapter 8

In the back of a coffee shop in Manhattan, Gilbert Beilschmidt curled up in an armchair with a vanilla cappuccino he hadn't had to pay for and watched his program sift through the Department of Justice files for information on an Arthur Kirkland.

This was his favorite part of his hacking method. He'd written the code and gotten past the firewalls, and now he just had to sit back and watch his beautiful little baby do her work. Coming to the coffee shop had several benefits; the primary one being free coffee since the barista was one of the Vargas's informants, but after that, it was the ability to steal the WiFi from the rival family's clubhouse situated a few buildings down. Gilbert had put in an extra powerful wireless sensor in his programming and porn laptop exactly for this purpose.

The program, who he'd named Lola in one of the late nights of code writing, flashed purple and red at him as she found a folder for 'Arthur Kirkland', then proceeded to automatically copy everything in the folder to his hard drive before backing out and quitting without a trace. It had been ages since the code monkeys at the DOJ had seen his presence in their system, as vast and untended as it was. They would barely feel Lola's touch in their database.

Gilbert sat up and pulled the laptop to its designed location, petting the side of the screen fondly as he scrolled through the folder and started scanning the files present.

Half an hour later, his cappuccino was gone and he knew everything about Arthur Kirkland but his favorite color and his shoe size. He packed up his laptop in his shoulder bag and handed his empty cup to the informant barista, who flipped him off on his way out the door.

Italians. Lovely people, really.

He merged back into the sidewalk crowd of the Upper East Side, pulling out his phone in the process.

"_This better be good news. I need some today_," a deep voice said in German on the other end after two rings.

"Always so down! Come on, boss, cheer up sometime," Gilbert replied with a grin, speaking in German as well as he walked briskly down the road. "I found out the location of Toni's witness. I'll tell you when I get back in a few, but what were we gonna do with him? I'm sure Natalia and Bridget wouldn't object to the change of pace."

The voice grunted. "_Actually, I've been thinking about that._"

Gilbert gasped in mock shock, slinging himself around a street sign pole as he waited for the walk signal. "You? Thinking? What an unprecedented occurrence!"

"_Shut up._" Gilbert laughed, and the voice continued. "_What's the thing that the witness protection program is most proud of?_"

Gilbert frowned in thought, pushing off the street sign and picking his pace back up. "I dunno, their rep, I guess."

"_Exactly. Their spotless, shining, beloved reputation._"A dramatic pause; Gilbert raised his eyebrows and snorted quietly. His brother was in a funny mood if he was being cute about his conversation. "_I have begun to think that it is time to remind them of why they exist at all. The day of the trial should be an appropriate time._"

A slow smile crept across Gilbert's face, causing a young mother to pull her stroller to the far side of the sidewalk. "I am really glad you're my boss sometimes, bro."

"_Don't call me bro_." The dial tone echoed under Gilbert's always grating laughter.

It was only after he had put his phone away that he realized all of his and Lola's hard work was now useless.

* * *

At the end of January, Arthur moved out of the Williams residence.

It had been a long timing coming, to be honest. Of course, Arthur liked them, and the couple liked him in return, but two and a half months of any houseguest can try even a saint's patience.

Arthur just wanted a bigger room.

With Alfred's help and the secret authority of a federal agency, Arthur leased a furnished apartment in one of the quickly expanding developments trickling down the side highway from the interstate. The complex backed up against the golf course, which gave Arthur's constant guilt from depending on Toris for transportation a reprieve. Now, it was just a walk across the fifth hole and the street to work.

At first the sudden solitude was strange. However, as a practiced introvert, Arthur settled into it quickly, only broken by work and Fridays with Alfred.

Oh, _Alfred_.

They tried so hard to keep it basic, keep it platonic. They didn't want to get attached to each other. They knew it could only end badly, with Arthur halfway across the country and both of them heartbroken.

But the sex was as fantastic as it was unavoidable.

That was part of the reason he moved out, really. At some point, imposing yourself and eating dinner with the family of your friend-with-fucking-phenomenal-benefits, on top of everything else Alfred was to him, became too awkward to bear.

The place he bought had just been built and smelled slightly like a new car. It lacked character, but he hadn't picked it out for its unique qualities. It had a kitchen, a television, and a bed, and that was all that really mattered.

February brought four straight days of rain, from drizzle to downpour. Arthur bought rain boots for his walk to work that purposefully did not match his umbrella, and Jake bullied the managers of the course into closing it until the rain went away to save what was left of the grass.

On the second day of rain, Alfred disappeared.

* * *

It was completely normal for Al in his line of work, Matt assured him the next day at breakfast. He'd called him early that morning to ask if he'd heard from Alfred last night, since it had been the first night since his arrival in Alabama that he hadn't answered his phone or called Arthur himself. Arthur ended up getting picked up by Matt on his way into work. He dunked his teabag in his mug without really paying attention to it as Matthew explained.

"Marshals always have to be on their toes," he said, serving the usual crowd their usuals with memorized motions. "I remember when we were kids, Al's parents would have to get up and go all the time after bad guys, leaving Al with Mom 'n' me while they hunted down justice." He paused for a moment to ring up someone's ticket, then went on, "There was this one time they called Mom at, like, dark o'clock in the morning, saying that they had to go _now_, but they didn't want to wake up Al – we were probably, like, seven or eight then – so they just… left him. Alone in that house. Mom went over as soon as she could that morning before school, 'course, but he was already awake when she came in to explain things." He frowned at the bar he was wiping down, scrubbing particularly hard at a spot of syrup that had faded several seconds ago. "He's always been an early riser."

They both frowned at the countertop for a moment before Matt slapped it with his rag, making Arthur jump. "Anyway!" he said loudly. "There's no tellin' where he went, or how long he's gonna be gone. He's worse than his parents were in the communicating with normal people area. They'll let us know if he gets hurt, but until then, easiest thing to do's get on with life and try not to worry about him too much. He knows how to handle himself a ton better than we do," he finished, turning back to his job and the orders waiting for him from the window to the kitchen.

Arthur took a sip of tea to find that it had gotten overly bitter without his permission. "Does trying work?"

Matt paused, plates of food balanced down one and a half of his arms. "You're good at this psychology thing, ain't ya?" Arthur shrugged and attempted a smile. Matt walk around the bar to pass out the food to a table of older men, then gripped Arthur's shoulder briefly on the way back. "Honestly? Not really. But, hey – it can't hurt, right?"

* * *

By the fourth day of rain, the golf course had turned to mush and mud. All but the most determined enthusiasts had given up on showing up to the country club, and the holes remained closed until the weather improved. Ivan had offered to let two of the three of them go home early to cut back on hours, and Arthur had volunteered to stay behind just to avoid going back to his empty apartment and pine for Alfred.

Because pining he was. He tried to keep himself busy, but far too often he found himself staring out the window over the course, or at his phone, or at the ceiling of his bedroom, sighing like a schoolgirl over a man he wasn't even in a real relationship with. When he realized himself he'd invariably jerk to reality and mentally – sometimes physically, if there was no one around – slap himself before finding something distracting to do. It never seemed to last.

On that day, the few people at the clubhouse were drawn to the alcohol, giving him enough to handle to stay moving. He was busy with a circle of thirty-somethings – regulars of the bar, the kind of men who were there to make an impression and make connections – when he was in the middle of a 'snap out of it' stage and eavesdropping on their conversation.

"Y'know, I really think that Kirkland fellow – you know, that Scottish guy – has really lost a few steps," one of them said to the others before knocking back the bourbon Arthur had just poured him. His friends were too busy agreeing to see Arthur jerk and splash rum on the carpet.

He cursed and knelt down to try and mop it up with a dishrag, listening to the conversation with fresh attention as he went on.

"I mean, he's been hangin' onto that past glory for _way_ too long. It's like, come on, get out of the game before you break a hip, Grandpa." Arthur, who had learned to play golf with his great uncle hitting golf balls off of a cliff in northern Scotland, bristled as the group laughed. "He's what, like, seventy now?"

"Sixty-three, actually," Arthur said as he straightened from his crouch and leaned on the counter, wrists turned to hold onto the edge of it backwards so they couldn't see his knuckles go white.

All five of them looked at their usually silently obliging bartender in surprise. "What?"

"Duncan Kirkland. That's the old Scottish player you're discussing, is it not?" He waited for the original commenter to nod slightly. "He's sixty-three; nowhere near seventy," he said calmly, staring down the man who had talked down about his favorite relative. In fact, Uncle Duncan was the only one he still talked to on a regular basis before the whole witness protection fiasco.

"You keep up with golf?" one of the others asked curiously. His tone was innocent enough, but Arthur could tell from their amused surprise that they had been pampered to believe that only the influential and affluent knew enough about golf to care. Arthur smiled at him sourly.

"Darling, I'm British," he explained, shocking them twice over – once by remembering the man's last name, and twice by disproving their suspicions that his accent was just a front. "I grew up on golf."

A different man in the group sat forward, a gleeful smile in his eyes. "Really now?"

"Yes, _really_," Arthur snapped, then reined himself in. No use losing your temper on the job.

Instead of being taken aback by his slight outburst, the third man (Jason, nice enough, probably the only one of the bucks who actually cared about the sport for the sake of the sport), grinned excitedly. "Do you play?"

"A little." Arthur had spent every summer of his childhood with his uncle, either at tournaments or at their cliff side practice green, and had even briefly played on his university team before he got bored.

Jason clapped his hands together. "Excellent."

* * *

That was how Arthur found himself wading through murky sandpits and half-dead grass the next day in rented cleats and remembering why he liked his summers with Uncle Duncan so much as a tortured soul of a teenager.

All five of yesterday's group turned out for the small competition, joking with each other and Arthur easily as they got their white and argyle filthy with masculine pleasure. A few of them had taken a while to get past the fact that they were playing golf with their bartender, but after he got a birdie on the first hole and an eagle on the second, they shut up fast.

Arthur was grinning insatiably by the seventh hole. He had forgotten how much fun it was to beat someone soundly at something you were good at. Jason, although an easygoing guy and a good sport, was growing more subdued with each hole, no longer bursting with his usual overconfidence.

After the ninth hole, Arthur spun his putter around his hands, having kept his two under par average with only a little stumbling as he got back into the feel of things. "Give up yet, love?" he asked the stony-faced Jason. "I'll go on if you'd like, but I think we've gotten the gist of this game."

Jason scowled at the ground and kicked at a dirt clod, then sighed in defeat and smiled sheepishly at Arthur. "Fine, fine. You win." They shook hands on it to the applause and taunts of their peanut gallery. Jason winked at him. "Just don't let it get to your head, bartender. There's always someone better'n you."

Arthur smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

* * *

A week after Alfred's disappearing act, Arthur was woken up in the middle of the night by loud banging at his front door.

He groaned, rolling over to check the time – just after three in the morning – and sat up, pushing away from his warm bed and blundering his way to the door with his eyes mainly closed. He was too bleary and weary with sleep to think about what kind of devil's concoction could be on the other side.

He fumbled the chain on the door and threw the deadbolt as the banging grew in intensity. "Shut your gob, I'm right here," he called through the door. Finally he got the chain off and the deadbolt drawn, cracking the door and peering though. "What in the bloody _hell_ do you want?" he growled, glaring without much effect with barely cracked eyes.

The door was shoved open out of his hands and he was shoved back against the wall by the door. He gasped as his eyes finally really opened to lock with Alfred's, heavy and intense and very blue. "Alfred, wha-" he began, only to get cut off by a mouth furiously engulfing his, strong arms pulling him in and holding him close. He responded just as viciously, teeth clacking together as his hands wove into Al's hair, anchoring their faces to each other as they desperately tried to reconnect.

When had a week become such a long time apart?

Arthur broke to breathe first, gasping as he clung to Alfred, who kissed down his face toward his neck, whispering against his skin. It took Arthur several moments of gasping before he could focus enough to make out his words; a rotation between '_want you_', '_missed you_', and '_love you_'.

'_Love you._'

Arthur panicked.

He writhed in Alfred's grasp, pushing him away and stumbling back against the wall, staring at Alfred in horror. Al was panting slightly, gaze still intense and searing, and Arthur couldn't look away. Slowly, Alfred seemed to realize what he had said exactly, and his eyes widened behind his glasses before he turned away, pulling at his hair.

"_Shit_," he swore, drawing out the vowel as he started to pace, cursing himself out in a furious, fast-paced mutter. Arthur stared at him, shocked. It wasn't so much shock at Alfred – although he certainly hadn't been expecting this to happen tonight – but more about himself and his rapidly fluttering heartbeat.

He pushed off the wall and intercepted Alfred's pacing, although he continued muttering. "I'm such an _idiot_, Arthur, I'm sorry, this never happens to me, I don't _do_ real sap-and-flowers kinda love, I'll- I'll drop your case or something, I'm _sorry_-"

Arthur reached up and cupped Al's face in his hands, shutting his jabbering mouth with his thumbs. "Stop talking, Alfred." Al breathed heavily through his nose a few times, staring at Arthur from only a few inches away, glasses tilted and hair mussed. Arthur sighed and let himself fall out of those eyes to rest his forehead on Alfred's collar. "You're torture to me sometimes, love," he said quietly, holding onto him tightly to keep him there and quiet. "You look at me with those big blue eyes, and all I want to do is hold you forever." His hands slid around to tease the hair at the nape of Alfred's neck as he talked into his shirt, which he had begun to notice was covered in dust and mud and desperately needed to be washed. Al's arms came up to hold him tentatively, loose around his waist but still very _there_. "And- and I keep telling myself that I can't _do_ that, but you know what? I've started to forget _why_ we can't." He sighed and let his eyes slip closed. "Oh, Alfred."

The throat against his temple gulped. "Yeah?"

Arthur smiled softly. "Alfred-" his fingers dug into Al's neck – "I think I've loved you for a while, my darling."

Under him, Alfred's chest rumbled with shaky laughter. "Really? Me too!" Arthur finally looked up at his face to find the brightest grin he'd ever seen beaming at him. He smiled giddily in return, only laughing as Alfred spun him around his living room, too happy to pretend he didn't like it. Somehow, the spinning turned back into kissing, and they toppled onto the couch, Arthur on top of Alfred, hands searching for any skin they could find.

That night, they stopped holding back.

* * *

The next day, Alfred held true to his promise and traded Arthur's case with a coworker.

They talked about it first, curled together in Arthur's bed that could finally fit two grown men at once. Al explained that he wasn't getting rid of him, or, God forbid, rejecting him so soon. He just felt that with such an intense personal interest in him, he was in danger of becoming biased and not doing his job properly. He had been considering doing this for a while, he admitted, face against Arthur's scalp. He knew a guy who had an assignment he was looking to get rid of, and their boss didn't really care as long as the job was done and the paperwork was filled out on time. When they finally crawled out of bed just after noon, Al called his coworker up and offered to pay for lunch, dragging Arthur along to meet him before they decided if the paper shuffling would be worth it. Arthur insisted that Alfred go home and change first, since he had come to Arthur's in the same clothes he had been on the manhunt in. (Apparently it had been unsuccessful, slogging through the southern Alabama swamps and sticky pine forests without a whiff of their target, which had made Alfred frustrated and unable to wait until morning to see Arthur again.)

They met him at an Applebee's, ten minutes late and rushed. The other Marshal, a small Middle Eastern man with very short hair and a manner that reminded Arthur uncannily of the Shannon police chief, was waiting for them at a booth, stirring his water with his straw and vastly unimpressed.

"You're late."

Al snorted. "No shit, Sherlock." He let Arthur slide into the booth first, then sat down beside him and continued, "Be glad I am, G. I smelled like a horse rolled in shit half n'hour ago. By the way, Arthur, Gupta Hassan."

Marshal Hassan nodded a greeting at Arthur while simultaneously frowning at Alfred's simile. "Thank you, Alfred. I really needed to hear that at the table."

Once again, Arthur realized with a flash that he was going to like this man.

* * *

With that taken care of (Al got the short end of the stick, really – now he had a Chinese mafia informant with a sprawling family to tend to), they split from Marshal Hassan and drove around idly, talking. They ended up at an old playground near Alfred's house, sitting on a bench under a willow tree and watching the group of local children play. Al almost got up and joined them when he recognized two of them as his next-door neighbors, but Arthur held him down with a hand on his sleeve.

"Not so fast," he said with a smirk, and Al sighed with a dramatic eyeroll before flopping back down next to Arthur, arms sprawled along the back of the bench. Arthur had to fight himself to keep from leaning into his shoulder. "We need to talk."

Al laughed. "Feels like all we've done today is talk." He smiled at Arthur's sharp look. "But go right on ahead."

"What are we now, Alfred?"

"Human beings, last time I checked. _Homo sapiens_, Family _Hominidae_, Order-" Arthur slapped him hard on the back of the head even as he hid a grin. Alfred cried out and slapped him back, more playful than Arthur's had been, then laughed again. "I dunno, I guess. It'd feel weird callin' you my boyfriend, really, and partner is too… workish."

Arthur snorted. "No, we don't need for me to remind you of work." Alfred chuckled. "You know, honestly, Al, I don't care what we call each other, as long as it's only us."

"Well, _duh_." Al pushed at his shoulder lightly with the arm not draped behind Arthur's back. He chewed his lip for a moment. "Wanna know a secret?"

Arthur fluttered his eyelashes at him. "Oh, please, do tell."

"Shut up." Al stuck his tongue out at him, then continued, looking at the ground, "You're the only person I've slept with in over a year." A brief pause, filled by the background shrieks and laughter of children. "That's measured since we first had sex, by the way."

Arthur furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He knew that Al didn't have many close friends or relationships, but Arthur had always had it in the back of his head that someone as burningly attractive as Alfred would at least have a few drunken one night stands under his belt, if not more than that.

Or maybe that was just his own perception of Alfred getting in the way of his judgment. He had fallen for him ages ago, after all.

He sat back and joined Al in staring at the ground. "If it makes you feel any better, my sex life was equally bland," he said quietly.

Before Alfred could respond, the brother and sister that he had recognized earlier ran up to him, the older girl pulling on his arm while the younger boy tried to climb into his lap. "Mr. Al, Mr. Al!" they chanted, tugging on him and causing him to laugh and sit up straight, drawing his arm from behind Arthur to help the boy up.

"Hey, guys!" he said, grinning widely and ruffling their hair in unison. They giggled, and Al put the boy back down next to his sister so he could lean forward on his knees to look at them from their eye levels. "So, what can I do for ya?"

The sister, who looked to be about six, pulled and pushed him to his feet, helped minutely by her just-beyond-toddler brother. "You gotta push us!" she ordered, leading him to the nearby swingset.

He chuckled and let himself be pushed a few feet before digging in his heels stubbornly. She pushed his legs, then came around front to pull his hands. "Come _ooon_," she whined, using all her kindergarten force. "You push us way better'n Mommy, and she's talkin' anyway," she reasoned. Her brother hovered, thumb in his mouth and big brown eyes pleading.

Al laughed, clear and bright. "Fine, fine, you win, Abby," he relented, and they cheered. Al winked at Arthur over his shoulder. "But only if my friend Arthur helps me."

The siblings seemed to see Arthur for the first time. He was still sitting on the bench, fighting with himself over being completely taken with Alfred playing with small children or being frightened out of his wits at having to interact with them personally. He had always been utter shit with little kids.

Apparently, no one bothered to tell the kids that, because they swarmed him with no warning, pulling him up like they had with Al while the bastard just laughed at him and followed them to the swing set.

Alfred helped the boy, who he introduced to Arthur as Todd, into one of the kiddie swings before standing behind Abby on the regular one, leaving Arthur with the perplexing dilemma of a small human being.

"I'm going to kill you for this, Alfred," he said quietly to Alfred as he started pushing Todd tentatively. Al just snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, sure you will."

"Mr. Arthur, are you a wizard?" Abby asked as she breezed past his shoulder.

Arthur blinked in confusion, both at being called 'Mr. Arthur' and the question. "I beg your pardon?"

"You talk funny like they do in _Harry Potter_. Do you have a wand, too? Why don't you have a cool scar? Do you know Voldymort? I bet he's scary. He looks really weird. Can you fly on a broomstick? Hey, Mr. Al, why'd you stop pushing me?"

Arthur was frozen in bewilderment that anyone, much less a six-year-old girl, could talk so fast, staring blankly at her as she continued chattering away. Alfred was busy falling over laughing, clutching his stomach and wheezing. Arthur was jolted out of his daze by Todd squirming in his seat for attention and quickly started pushing him again as he tried to explain about countries, accents and fiction to a hyperactive small child.

Alfred couldn't stop laughing until their mother came over to collect her children and meet her next-door neighbor's new friend.


	10. should jump up on judgment day

Chapter 9

Sergio Sebastiani looked up at the nice, pretty house in front of him, then back down at the slip of paper in his hand to make sure that he had gotten the address right. This couldn't be the drop point for the antique sword he had relieved the Newark evidence locker of. It had a bright yellow door, a white fence, and African violets blooming in the windows.

_Flowers_. In a _mafia safehouse_.

He frowned, but shrugged and adjusted the duffel bag's strap on his shoulder before walking to the front door and ringing the doorbell.

"Coming!" a woman's voice called through the wood faintly. Sergio almost turned and left, dead certain he was at the wrong place now, but the door opened to show a pretty woman with long, dishwater brown hair and a bright smile. "May I help you?" she asked.

Sergio cleared his throat. "Yes, ma'am, I'm – I'm-a here with the olive-a oil shipment?" he said the memorized code phrase rolling off his tongue.

Her eyes lit up, and she stepped back and help open the door. "Come in, come in! Extra virgin's always welcome here," she responded with a wink. Sergio's face burned as he ducked into the door. Somehow, the return code phrase had sounded distinctly less sexual when a fat old Italian man in a black jumpsuit taught it to him.

The woman led him through a typical upper middle class house to the kitchen before addressing him, still smiling but now with a slight professional manner. "Now, honey. What do you have for me?" she asked as she poured out a cup of coffee for him. "Cream or sugar?"

"Uh, no-a, thank you," he stuttered, and she smiled kindly as she handed it to him. Sergio sat the duffel down in a chair and took it with a weak smile. He sipped at it, barely tasting how well made it was, before setting the cup down on the table and unzipping the duffel bag.

He lifted the sword out carefully, almost cradling it in his hands as he presented it towards her, grip forward. Her eyes lit up again and she pulled it from its sheath, swinging it through the air just enough to show she knew what she was doing before resting the flat of it against her palm, inspecting the blade carefully and flipping it to check the other side. Sergio was only able to hide his shocked expression through long years of practice as she reached for the sheath in his hands and slid the sword home.

"Thank you for bringing this back to us, honey," she said, holding his upper arms to reach up and kiss his cheeks before turning away to fiddle with one of the drawers under the counter, blocking her actions with her body, humming lightly and tapping the sheathed sword against her leg.

Sergio gulped his coffee like his life depended on it.

She snapped the drawer closed and spun back around, trading his mostly-empty coffee cup for a small white envelope. Long habit made him check to see if all of his money was there; only after he counted it all did he realize this might be bad form in front of the lady. She just laughed at his cornered expression.

"Oh, it's okay, dear. It's all there, though, never fear," she assured him, handing him the duffel bag. He shouldered it again as she opened the back door to a minuscule walled garden. "There's a trellis in the back left you can use as a ladder," she said, pointing to a climbing vine – bare of leaves this time of February, so he could see the white-painted wood beneath it. "Just take the alley to the left and you'll be back on the street." He nodded and wove through the dormant rose bushes and day lilies towards the corner.

"Oh, and Sergio?" she called from the door when he was halfway up the surprisingly sturdy trellis.

He looked back over his shoulder at her. "Yes-a, ma'am?"

She smiled and waved with the sword's sheath, the actual sword in her other hand. "Welcome to the family!"

* * *

"Is it weird that I like this arrangement more?" Arthur asked Alfred a few weeks into their new relationship, Alfred's head on his chest as they curled together on the couch and watched an old black and white movie on television. Alfred's laugh rumbled down to his toes.

"Well, I dunno," he answered, shifting between Arthur's bent legs and trying not to crush the slightly smaller man beneath him. "I kinda like not havin' your fat ass squeezin' the air from my lungs, m'self." Arthur shoved at his forehead and rolled his eyes while Al laughed.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." They settled back to watching the movie for a moment. "It's been really nice, not having to dance around each other."

Alfred hummed, tucking his head under Arthur's chin. "This is true. Gupta's a good agent – I wouldn't have given you to'm if I didn't think so, sugar – and now, well…" He pushed himself up to his elbows, leaning over Arthur and grinning. "Now I can kiss you whenever I want." Arthur's slow smile was covered by Al's mouth, and he wound his arms around Al's neck and pulled him close.

* * *

Marshal Hassan did things a little differently than Alfred.

Unlike Al, he was a seasoned veteran in the witness protection program, and handled Arthur with no more personal involvement than any other law enforcement officer in a case. He wasn't exactly distant with Arthur, but after the intense attention from Alfred, Gupta's biweekly home visits and weekly phone calls made it so he could almost pretend that he had a normal life, and that New York, the assassin, and his old life really had never existed.

Of course, Arthur's life being Arthur's, it couldn't go too long before things went to shit.

* * *

Towards the end of April, Marshal Hassan reminded Alfred of Arthur's upcoming birthday, and he insisted on having at least some kind of celebration for him. Arthur hadn't had a real birthday party in at least fifteen years, and insisted that he would be perfectly fine just spending it at home with Alfred.

In the end, they compromised and went out to eat dinner somewhere that _wasn't_ the Sugar Maple with Susan, Matt, and Katyusha. They drove downtown to a little Indian place, where Arthur got to satisfy his lingering craving for curry while Matthew balked at the idea of anything spicy. His mother had hot sauce on her rice just to make him feel inadequate, and his wife compared him to her cancer patients.

Arthur was still laughing when he excused himself from the table and stepped outside into the slightly muggy open air to take his weekly phone call from Marshal Hassan.

"Hello, Marshal," he said when he finally answered the call. "How may I help you?"

"_You got your subpoena today._"

Arthur's good mood shattered like it had fallen out of a ten-story window. "I'm terribly sorry, but what?"

"_Your ten day warning for your court appearance came in today_," he elaborated. "_Pack your things, quit your job, end your lease, the whole nine yards. It's time to go back to New York and testify._"

Arthur fell back against the brick wall of the restaurant. "Just like that?"

"_Just like that._"

Arthur inhaled deeply, held it, then let it out slowly. "Does Alfred know?"

"_Not yet_," Marshall Hassan answered. "_I put a memo in his box, but he had already left for the day by the time we got it._" He sighed into the microphone on the other end. "_I gave him the paperwork for requesting to come with us as well. I wouldn't be surprised if he joined your trial bodyguard, too._" A brief pause. "_I really am sorry for springing this on you so suddenly, but you're getting about as much warning as we are._"

"Ye-" Arthur's voice cracked, and he cleared his throat before continuing, "Yes, I understand. Thank you."

"_Good luck, Arthur. I'll let you know when I know more._"

They hung up, and Arthur stayed outside and stared in shock at the ground for several long moments until his palms got sweaty. He stuffed his phone in his pocket and pasted on a smile before going back to his birthday party.

He'd tell them later. Right now, he was going to try and forget about the looming deadline and have one more night of the best phase of his life so far.

* * *

The first thing Arthur had to do the next day was inform Ivan of his resignation.

He found him flirting unsuccessfully with his secretary the next day before his shift and asked for a private word. He accepted the secretary's nonverbal gratitude and relief with a small nod before closing the door behind him and sitting in the chair in front of Ivan's desk.

"I'm moving back to England."

Ivan blinked, obviously not expecting Arthur's blurted out statement. "What?"

"My visa's almost expired, and I feel like I've overstayed my welcome in the States," he lied, twisting his watch around his wrist. "I'm leaving next week."

There was silence from Ivan's end for a moment. "Is this about Alfred? Because if it is, I will gladly have a nice man-to-man chat with him-"

"No, _God_, no! It's definitely not Alfred," he cut him off quickly before the implications of Ivan's statement suck in. "Wait, how do you know about me and – I mean, Alfred and me?" Good Lord, the boy was rubbing off on him. Next thing he knew he'd be wearing garish belt buckles and addressing everyone as 'y'all'.

Ivan smiled. "Arthur, trust me, anyone who has eyes and has seen you two in the same room for five seconds knows." Arthur's face burned and he looked away again, crossing his arms over his chest. "Honestly, though, I had assumed you would have at least attempted to fully immigrate to here by now," Ivan continued. "What happened?"

Arthur chewed the inside of his cheek. "I told you, my visa expired. That's all."

Ivan tutted, and Arthur scowled ferociously at the condensation in his tone. "Come now, let's not keep secrets," he said, smiling over his interlaced fingers. "You wouldn't want me to remember Raivis's old contract, would you?"

Arthur frowned at him while Ivan just kept smiling. "You're a bastard, aren't you."

"It's something I choose to take pride in," Ivan replied easily, not offended in the slightest. "Now. Truth."

Arthur fought with himself, then sighed in defeat. "I guess since it's so close, it doesn't really matter anymore," he said quietly. He gave Ivan his most piercing glare. "But when I say you can't tell anyone, I mean you can't tell _anyone_, got it?"

"Now you just have me intrigued," Ivan said, sitting forward. "I promise not to tell it, whatever 'it' is. Now tell me so I can stop calling it 'it'."

Arthur sighed. "My name isn't Arthur Kensington, it's Arthur Kirkland. I've never been married, and I technically already have my green card, if you must know," he said slowly, staring at the carpet under his feet. He realized that he had never actually _told_ anyone down here his real identity – everyone who knew found out from different sources. It was easier than he had thought. "I came down here under witness protection after I saw an Italian mob murder in New Jersey, and now I'm being summoned back to testify. Alfred was the Marshal in charge of my case until… Well. Until recently."

The silence this time was long and oppressive, almost palpable, and Arthur tried to look anywhere but the heavily scrutinizing gaze of his now former boss.

"Well. This certainly changes things." Arthur's head snapped up as Ivan rolled back to the filing cabinet behind him, pulling out the middle drawer to get Arthur's paperwork. "Can't very well get in the way of the federal government, now, can I?"

Arthur smiled and laughed slightly in relief. "Thank you, Ivan. You know, you're actually the only person I've told this to," he admitted as he accepted the form handed to him by Ivan, sliding forward on his seat to take a pen from the cup on his desk and write on the edge of it.

"Just fill that out and sign it and you'll be done," Ivan said in regards to the form. "So who else knows about your situation besides Alfred?"

Arthur explained as he filled it out. "Well, Al's friend, wife, and mum know. I pretended to be their relative, so they had to. And the police department at Shannon. I guess that's really it, besides the Marshals." He signed his name, almost writing 'Kirkland' despite not having used it for over six months, and wrote the date before handing it back to Ivan and standing up. "Well, Ivan, it's been a pleasure knowing you. I'd like to say I'd keep in touch, but-"

"I understand." Ivan smiled, and Arthur's fight-or-flight instincts flared up in his head. "But, please, before you go, can I ask one thing?"

Arthur stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "It depends."

Ivan rested his temple on the back of his hand, smiling as he said, "Oh, it won't take too long, and then I'll be out of your hair forever. I just want to know about the murder you witnessed."

Arthur sighed, shoulders falling, but stepped away from the door and sat back down.

"It was late one night back in November and I was walking home from the bus stop across the park by my apartment…"

* * *

Over the next week, Arthur spent most of his now free time saying goodbye to everyone and packing between briefings from Al and Gupta on how to be a protected witness at a hearing. He was slightly surprised at how many people he had made such strong acquaintances with, from the staff and regulars at the golf course and the diner to the locals of Shannon to the people in his apartment complex.

The girl next door to Alfred made him read at least one chapter of a _Harry Potter_ book for her and her brother so that 'a wizard could read her a wizard book', and they both latched onto his legs when he tried to leave. The high school waitress at the diner struggled not to cry, and Alejandro clapped him hard on the back. When Jake found out he was leaving, he almost tackled Arthur to the floor of the diner, bawling and smelling like beer. It took Matt and Al to pull him off after they stopped laughing long enough to stand on their own. Kiku, the Japanese banker who had been Arthur's first friend, was the only normal person he gave his real email address to, not one affiliated with Kensington and the Marshals. It was an old account leftover from his college days that he still checked from time to time; it had been made based on his first name, so it was less suspicious than the 'akirkland' username he had been defaulting to since then. The other bartenders wished him luck, and Jason, who had adopted Arthur as his favorite bartender after the golf game, made him make one last Mudslide for him (even though he wasn't in uniform or even on the payroll anymore) when he stopped by the golf course to say goodbye.

And then, of course, there were the Williamses.

All three of them tagged along when Matt drove Al and Arthur to the airport, the two women sitting on either side of Arthur in the backseat and fussing over him relentlessly. The waterworks didn't break out until the luggage was on the curb.

Katyusha was, predictably, the first to crack, wailing and smothering Arthur and Alfred against her considerable cleavage for several clinging seconds, during which Arthur had never been sadder that he was gay. She sniffed, long and hard, and pulled away slowly, wiping her nose on the handkerchief she always kept in her purse with shaky hands. "_Budite oberezhbi, molodiy cholovik_," she said, then shuffled into the passenger's seat of Matt's car before anyone could respond.

"Does anyone know what she just said?" Arthur asked, puzzled.

"Not a clue," Matt responded. "Take care up there, Arthur," he said, as awkward as the day they met as they shook hands.

"Darlin', I'm gonna miss you _so_ much!" Susan cried, almost picking Arthur off the ground with the force of her bear hug. "Now don't go doing anything I wouldn't do, y'hear?"

Arthur laughed, his tone getting a little watery. "That's not ruling out much, then, is it?" He returned the hug for the first time, resting his forehead on her shoulder. "But I'll do my best."

"Mmm, you better." She let him go as Matt and Al finished their manly farewell, then handed Arthur his suitcase and pushed him in the direction of the revolving doors. "Now go. Don't want you to miss your flight, now, do we?" She lifted her glasses to wipe at her eyes, and Arthur smiled.

"Thanks for everything – all of you," he said, trying to include Katyusha in the equation as well, even though she was purposefully turned away with the window rolled up. "Well. Goodbye, then." He walked briskly through the revolving doors and didn't look back until Alfred joined him, squeezing his shoulder. When he did, they were gone.

* * *

"_What the flying fuck on a stick do you _want_?_"

Roderich Edelstein jerked his head away from his phone instinctively at the shouted German in his ear, then frowned and brought it back. "This is the fourth time I've had to call you in a row to get your attention, Gilbert," he snapped, leaning forward in his expensive leather office chair and glaring at nothing. "I am not willing to accept this from _anyone_, least of all you."

"_Yeah, well, I'm kind of busy fucking your wife right now_," Gilbert grunted. In the background, the distinct moans of a woman in the middle of sex rattled in Roderich's ear. "_So get to the point or come home and join us. We just got started._"

Roderich sighed, closing his eyes and massaging his forehead with his free hand. "I don't have time for this," he muttered. "Antonio's trial is starting tomorrow, and the eyewitness is going to appear on the third day of court. That's your window."

"_Yeah, yeah, I got it. Sheesh, you called me four times for _that_? You really need to get a girl._" He hung up on Roderich's furious screaming that he _had_ a girl and if he stopped thinking with his _dick_ that he could have a normal relationship as well.

He threw the phone into its cradle and immediately reached for the brandy and aspirin he kept under his desk, considering the two before giving up all pretense and medical advice and washing down two of the pills with a shot of the brandy.

* * *

The flight from Birmingham to Newark was nonstop and painless, Al and Arthur using the close proximity of plane seats as an excuse to maintain contact and reassure themselves of the other's continued existence. Marshal Hassan, sitting in the aisle seat next to Alfred, studiously read a large book on archaeology and ignored them. The closer they got to their destination, the more nervous Arthur became, fidgeting unstoppably and clutching Al's arm at the slightest threat of turbulence. Al did his best to keep him calm, but the crossword puzzle in the back of the in-flight magazine only lasted so long.

They landed after sunset, and Arthur didn't even try to hide how he clutched at Alfred's hand as a group of very experienced Marshals herded them into a waiting car and a deceptively decrepit-looking motel on the outskirts of town. Al was given a different room than Arthur, who was sharing a two-bed deal with Marshal Hassan. However, not too soon after settling in, Alfred relieved him for a thirty-minute break and sat down with Arthur, pulling him back into his arms, leaning against the headboard and bending his knees up at Arthur's side. He rested his chin on Arthur's shoulder.

"Talk."

"Oh, God, Alfred, I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow," Arthur blurted out, resting back against Alfred's chest while staying tense as a bowstring. "I mean, I know what _should_ happen since you've made me practice so much, but there's so much gray area, so many 'if's, so much that could just go to hell-"

"Shhh." Alfred kissed his neck softly. "It's okay to be scared, sugar. It's scary, I know, believe me. But you'll make it through tomorrow, and you'll live to see 'nother day," he assured him, speaking into the skin of his throat. "No one's died in WITSEC before, and I'm not gonna let you be the first." He smiled and flicked two fingers out from his forehead before returning his arm back around Arthur's waist. "Scout's honor."

Arthur twisted in his grip, looping his arms around Al's neck and folding his legs beneath him. "Just- hold me for a bit, please?" he mumbled into his shoulder. Al smiled softly and pulled him closer.

"You got it, sugar."

* * *

{A/N: Next to last chapter! Hope you guys liked this as much as I liked writing it :)}


	11. you know your time has come

Chapter 10

Gilbert Beilschmidt shifted uncomfortably as he lay stretched out on the third floor of an empty building across the street from the Newark courthouse. "I'm _bored_," he said out loud, peering through his sniper rifle's scope at the people milling around in front of the building. "Can't they just get here already so I can stop thinking about this?"

"_Shut up_," an angry voice said into his ear in Italian. "_I know you're only bitching because I don't have a fucking choice but to listen to you, but on the motherfucking Madonna, shut the fuck up!_"

Gilbert grinned, moving his scope to the side to see Lovino Vargas lurking in the shadows of one of the giant columns on the courthouse's front porch. He scowled at nothing, eyes flicking between everyone around him suspiciously. No one who wasn't deeply trusted by the underboss knew the faces or even the real names of the Vargas twins, but that didn't stop Lovino's natural paranoia. "Come on, now, you know you love it," he teased, watching Lovino's scowl get scowlier with glee.

"_Just do the job so we can get the stupid bastard out of this fucking place_," he growled. Gilbert chuckled lightly.

"You got it, boss." He moved his scope back to the street front drop off of the courthouse and settled back to wait.

* * *

Lovino Vargas didn't like this part of the job.

Bossing people around, organizing a brilliant scam or shakedown, abusing authority; now, that was fun. He could live on a job of just that – and, most of the time, he did.

Killing an innocent person, though, who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? That made him feel like the dirty, filthy scumbag the world believed him to be.

But, Antonio's life and freedom depended on this hit. He had to see this through, for fucking love.

"_Stand sharp, Lovi_," his sniper said in his earpiece, and he whipped his attention back to the street in front of the courthouse to see an unmarked car with fully tinted windows pull up.

"Show me why I keep you around, asshole," he grumbled low in his throat for only the mic stuck there to hear, glancing up at the open window he knew Gilbert was behind. He pressed slightly against the column he was using as a partial hiding place and watched as the back car door opened, two suits in sunglasses first, standing guard as a smaller man with the traditional canvas sack over his head ducked out, closely followed by two more suits in sunglasses.

Lovino stared at the witness, the one man on earth who held the key to Antonio's fate. He was shorter than he expected.

He shouldn't have come to see this. He shouldn't stay. He shouldn't watch.

The circle of men around the witness got to the stairs, heads darting around for any sign of trouble. Lovino gripped the iron railing in front of him hard enough for the designs etched into it to leave white marks on his palms.

They got up the stairs. Lovino was about to ask Gilbert what the hell he was doing up there when one of the rear guards saw the open window just as it flashed and the shot rang out.

Chaos – the people milling, a few women screaming, officers and agents swarming. Lovino watched the hive of activity intensely, waiting for an opening to clear up.

A split second break in the wall of people. Lovino clutched a hand to his mouth as the image of the witness, very much alive, mask torn off and crying openly as he knelt next to the suit who had seen Gilbert's angle and was now sprawled across the granite, sunglasses gone and breathing shallow.

Someone stepped in front of the opening, but a few heart-stopping seconds later, the other three Marshals in the personal guard managed to get everyone pushed back, giving Lovino a longer look.

The witness's mouth was moving furiously, shouting at the agent as his hands ran down his face and chest, searching for the injury with more desperation than method. Lovino couldn't hear anything they said from this far away with all the commotion, but it didn't take words to understand the weak smile and hand on the witness's wet cheek.

"No."

"_Boss, you gotta speak up if you want me to hear you_," Gilbert snapped. He didn't like disturbances on the job, especially one he didn't really want to complete anyway.

"No," he said louder, watching the paramedics take over as the witness was dragged away, struggling a little to get back to the agent's side.

"_No _ what_?_"

"No, don't shoot," he muttered. "The job's off. I can't do it. I'll – we'll find another way. We're gonna leave this witness alone."

"_Well that's a relief_," Gilbert sighed. "_I had a bad feeling about this whole thing, anyway_."

They watched as the police and the feds got the remnants of the crowd under control and the paramedics stripped back the agent's coat and vest to reveal a bulletproof vest. Even though both Lovino and Gilbert had been the causes of many deaths, they were both slightly relieved at the sight.

"I'm going inside," Lovino said quietly, heading into the courthouse.

"_I'll see you tonight, then_," Gilbert responded. Lovino glanced back at the agent, who had sat up with the aid of two paramedics and was smiling at one of them. His reassurances that he was fine, just a little shaken up, reached Lovino now that most people had gone inside to watch the trial.

"Yeah. See you then."

* * *

If Lovino was completely honest with himself, he knew that this case was so cut and dry it was flaking at the edges. A blind person could see that Antonio had killed that goddamned snitch, and he knew personally how piss poor of a liar he was. It was one of the many things he loved him for, but in this case it was just infuriating.

Roderich did his job beautifully, of course. It was why he had his salary. In the end, though, even with the murder weapon mysteriously missing, the addition of the eyewitness – British, blond, surly and stubborn; Lovino didn't like how similar he was to himself – the jury had no trouble ruling him guilty.

When they all stood up to leave, Antonio looked out into the audience and found Lovino almost instantly, smiling brightly and trying to wave even as the bailiffs cuffed him to transport him back to prison. Lovino almost slapped his hand to his forehead, but instead gave him his best attempt at a smile, which just made Antonio beam wider before he was gone.

* * *

After the trial and subsequent conviction, Arthur strongarmed his burly Marshal guards into letting him visit Alfred in the hospital. Surprised more than intimidated at his insistence and desperation, they relented, taking as many back roads and misleading turns as possible to the emergency room that Alfred had been taken to.

Along the way, they informed him that the vest had done its intended job and stopped the killing force of the shot. However, whomever had tried to kill Arthur knew what he was doing, since the bullet still managed to break a few ribs. His right side would be a mess, and it would hurt to cough or laugh for a few months, but otherwise he was fine.

By the time Arthur got to Alfred, though, the staff had put him under anesthesia until the worst of the pain passed. He held his hand tightly anyway as two of the Marshals left, leaving only Marshal Hassan behind.

"What do I do now?" Arthur asked him, weaving his fingers into the unresponsive Alfred's.

"We'll keep you close for a few days, just in case the Vargas's try anything in revenge," he responded, leaning against the window frame on the other side of Alfred's bed. "Then you're free to go back to your old life." Arthur laughed bitterly, then pressed his free hand over his mouth to stop it before it got hysterical. The Marshal smiled, equally as bitter. "Yeah, we get that a lot."

Arthur snorted and stared at Al's sleeping face. "Is there any way to just… stay where I was?"

Marshal Hassan shrugged. "It's your call. After this week, you're back to being your real self again." Arthur nodded in understand, stroking his thumb over the back of Alfred's hand.

"Whatever my real self is anymore, right?"

The Marshal smiled grimly. "I'll wait outside, whenever you're ready to go," he said, pushing off of the wall and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

* * *

When Al woke up about an hour later, Arthur was still there, holding onto his sweaty hand. They smiled at each other for a moment.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself."

A brief pause, then Arthur threw himself forward and clutched Alfred's neck, burying his face in his shoulder, "You are such an _idiot_, Al, I can't _believe_ you did that, you had me worried bloody _sick_-"

Alfred started laughing, winced and pushed Arthur away from his broken ribcage. "Arthur, sugar, what makes ya think I wouldn't take a bullet for ya?" he asked simply, smiling at Arthur. He stared at Al numbly before pulling his face roughly to him and attempting to kiss him senseless.

"You-" he said against his mouth when they broke for air- "are the most perfect man-" another long, hungry kiss- "I have ever known."

Al laughed again and winced harder, hand instantly going to his impacted side. "Aw, now, don't say that," he said quietly, trying not to breathe too deeply as Arthur kissed his face and neck. "I was jus' doin' my job."

"Bullshit." Arthur climbed onto the bed to kneel at Alfred's side, pulling the sheets down and his hospital gown up to show him the spreading purple-yellow bruise at his side. "Does _this_ look like 'jus' doin' your job'?"

Al did a breezy half-laugh to avoid sparking up the pain in his ribs. "Your Southern accent is shit, man."

"Shut up and look," Arthur snapped, poking the bruise gently – but not gently enough. Al cried out and moved away from Arthur instinctively, which effectively sobered him up. Al grumbled, face pink under his perpetual tan, and fumbled for the remote for his bed, sitting it up so he could look at his side without breaking his ribs further. When he finally could see it, he whistled.

"Well damn. Glad that was me and not you," he said with a grin. Arthur scowled, then his face softened as he carded his hands through Alfred's sweaty hair. Alfred closed his eyes and sighed at the feeling.

"Thank you, by the way," Arthur said softly.

Al cracked an eyelid, then closed it again. "S'not a problem, really," he mumbled. "I'd do it again, y'know."

"Yes. I know." They fell quiet for a few minutes, Arthur petting Alfred and Alfred resting after the exertion of the conversation, until a nurse poked her head in to check on Al. Arthur scrambled off the bed and cleared his throat nervously as she frowned at him and said that visiting hours were long over.

"I'll come back tomorrow, all right?" Arthur said from the door. "We'll talk about the future then."

Al smiled as the nurse fussed over him, setting his bedding straight and checking his IV. "See ya then, sugar."

* * *

Arthur stayed in New York City.

It was only going to be for a little while, he assured Alfred as they sat in one of the sitting rooms in the hospital. He hadn't really had a chance to close up his old life, and there were a few people that deserved a proper goodbye before he vanished again into the American South. Alfred reluctantly saw the reason in it and went to Birmingham upon being discharged from the hospital with only minor complaints, and they went back to daily phone conversations as their only contact.

* * *

Vash Zwigli sat down across from a dark-haired man in a tightly pressed suit in an upper Manhattan coffeeshop, eyes flickering back and forth around the establishment. "Are you sure this is safe?" he asked the other in a low voice, fingers clutching the butt of the gun that he wore even as a civilian like a security blanket.

"Don't you worry, old friend," the other said, sitting back with his tiny espresso cup. "The owner is a good friend of mine."

Vash didn't loosen up, but he gave in. "I know a way to break your hitman out of jail."

The dark man's eyebrows rose over his wire-rimmed glasses. "Really."

"Yes. I know a few guys in his prison's guards who have a bone to pick with their superiors, and, well – you've met Antonio. They don't feel right keeping him in a cell. It's like kicking a puppy who's still always happy to see you." The dark man smiled faintly.

"And what about you?"

Vash glared at him, always small pupils barely pinpoints after the harsh June sun of the outdoors. "I want you to forget all about my sister and me. You know I never wanted in this… _business_ in the first place. I do this for you, you do this for me." He sat back and crossed over his chest. "Tit for tat, and all that."

The dark man stared into his cup for several long seconds. "And when would this break out be?"

"Sunday. Early morning. Before the church service."

"I see." He stood, leaving his cup on the table. "As always, it's been a pleasure working with you." He picked his briefcase up from the floor and headed out. Vash stood and called after him, "Hey! What about Lili?"

The dark man stopped in the doorway and looked at him curiously. "Lili who?" He gave him a small smile. "Take care, old friend."

* * *

It was a slow, muggy day in Shannon, Alabama. The humidity and stifling heat of late June had everyone hiding inside from the worst parts of the day. Business at the Sugar Maple was equally slow, conversations subdued and everyone moving sluggishly despite the air conditioning. Matthew Williams and his mother, Susan, leaned against the counter, Matthew playing with the change in the tip jar idly while Susan's eyes drooped as she tried not to fall asleep standing. They barely noticed the taxi in the gravel parking lot drive away or the chimes above the door ring.

"Bloody hell, is it _always_ this terribly hot down here? I think I broke a sweat just walking inside," a British-accented voice said from the doorway. Matthew, Susan, and several of the customers looked to the source and saw a blond man with green eyes and a sweater vest standing there with a large smile and a suitcase.

Susan screamed and scrambled over the bar, not noticing as an errant foot knocked over the day-by-day calendar by the register and raced to throw herself at him, almost knocking him back through the door with sheer force. Matthew stared dumbly, then pulled out his phone and tapped out a text message before joining his mother at a slightly slower pace, waiting to the side as she finished her enthusiastic greeting.

"It's nice to see you, too, Susan," the newcomer said, laughing as they parted. He nodded at Matt. "Hello, Matthew."

Matt grinned. "Ah, c'mere, you." This time, the newcomer _was_ lifted off the ground by the greeting, and he laughed and pushed at Matt's shoulders as he yelled at him to put him down.

When he had both feet on the floor, Susan took over, taking his suitcase and herding him to the bar under the curious eyes of her patrons.

"C'mon, sit, Arthur, and tell us everything," she said, tucking his suitcase into the leg room under the bar and picking up the calendar off the floor. Arthur obliged, sitting in front of her as she bustled about to make him tea. Matthew decided it was break time and sat down next to him, ruffling his hair.

"The trial went well – besides Alfred getting shot, of course," he began, accepting the tea from her and noticing the light yellow tab on the bag of the blend he'd found was his favorite during his stay here. It had been two months since he had left Alabama, and she still remembered. He covered his embarrassing surge of affection by clearing his throat and continuing, "I stayed with an old… acquaintance of mine for a while. Went back to England for a time, actually." He smiled, slightly sour. "felt like it was time for my once-a-decade chat with my family."

"Now hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute," one of the customers said, standing from his table behind them where he had been eavesdropping to lean on the counter at Arthur's side. He was one of the post office workers from down the street, and one of the regulars who had become very familiar with Arthur in his winter stay. "I thought you left _for_ England? And what's this 'bout a trial?"

Arthur sighed and put his face in his hands. "Oh Lord – I'm going to be doing this for _months_," he moaned into his hands before spinning on his bar stool to face the rest of the diner. All of them were paying some degree of attention to the commotion his arrival had caused, and at least most of them were familiar faces. "I need to tell you all something," he said, loud enough for all of them to hear. "My name isn't Arthur Kensington, it's Arthur Kirkland. I'm not related to Susan and Matt, and I've most _certainly_ never been married. I lived in New York City for four years before I witnessed a murder and got sent down here under witness protection. When I left in April, it wasn't to go back to England, but to testify at the trial." He looked at Matt. "Is that everything?"

Matt shrugged. "Sounds like it to me."

There was a brief silence from the audience, then the postal worker who had confronted him grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "Took ya long enough to come back!" he said brightly, and everyone laughed – Arthur more in relief than in humor.

They all went back to their own conversations, and Arthur faced Susan again and accepted the grilling, returning it in full force.

Matthew had just finished telling him about Katyusha's pregnancy – she was entering the second trimester – when the door flew open and Alfred was there, glaring at Matt, who was sitting on the near side of Arthur and blocking him from view.

"Matt, there better be a good reason for callin' me over here like it was an emergency, or so help me God, you owe me a month of Mc… Donald's…" he trailed off as Arthur peered around Matthew's back. The door fell shut behind him as they stared at each other – Alfred dumbstruck and Arthur biting his smile into submission.

"Hello, Alfred."

The dumbstruck morphed into a wide grin as Arthur turned away from the bar and stood up, brushing off his straight clothes and blushing furiously even as he did his best nonchalant act. It was promptly ruined as Alfred crossed the room in wide steps and swept him up off the ground for the second time that day, spinning around once and making Arthur latch onto his neck for dear life.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me you were coming back?" Alfred asked, still holding him up even though he was standing still again. Arthur grinned.

"What, and ruin the surprise?" Al laughed and put him down at last, their arms taking just a few seconds too long to fall away. Arthur suddenly realized how quiet it had gotten and glared at the patrons just in time to see them all turn back to their own companions or food and resume their previous activities quickly. He snorted, then looked back up at Alfred, who was still smiling.

"It's good to have you back, sugar," he said through his grin. Arthur blinked slowly and smiled back softly.

"It's good to be back."

Alfred smiled back at him for a few more seconds before he winked over at the Williamses. "I think I'll take him off your hands now, if you don't mind," he said to them. Susan smirked and Matt rolled his eyes. Arthur ducked his head and shook his hair in front of his face, then wrestled his suitcase out from under the bar. Alfred took it from him, then asked, "So, where were ya plannin' on stayin' tonight?"

Arthur shrugged, hiding a smile. "I thought I could find a place somewhere."

Al grinned and held the door open for him. "I think I can help ya there."

* * *

It was just after sunset on Christmas eve, and the Williamses' living room was bursting with the season. Dinner was over, and the five adults had gathered on the floor and the couch for a few hours of conversation. Katyusha cooed constantly over her newborn baby boy, only two weeks old and already the happiest thing in any room that Alfred wasn't in. Matthew kept one arm around her as he and Arthur had a heated discussion about beer and other forms of alcohol. Alfred and Susan sat on the floor, playing with six-month-old Zoe, Al and Arthur's chocolate Labrador puppy.

Arthur's phone rang while he was lecturing on the difference between ale and lager. He was tempted to ignore it when it was labeled 'UNKNOWN'; however, his new job as the pet press release writer for the Department of Justice had him getting calls at any time of the day or night, so he excused himself and hid in the hallway to answer it.

"This is Arthur Kirkland."

"_You are a fucker to find, did you know that?_"

He blinked, leaning heavily in the door frame of the guest room he had lived in for over two months last year. "I'm terribly sorry, but who do I have the utmost _pleasure_ of speaking to?"

"_You can call me Romano_."

Arthur turned the name over in his head, but couldn't make a connection. "You're going to have to be more specific than that, I'm afraid."

"_I almost had you killed earlier this year, fucktard!_"

Arthur's eyes widened. "Oh." Then his eyebrows furrowed and he glared at the wall, which was still painted peach. "Well, what the bloody fuck do you want?"

"Calm yourself down, I'm not gonna do anything-"

There was a rumble and angry curses from the other end, and Arthur frowned in confusion until a new but eerily familiar voice said happily, "_Cielito! It's been so long! How are you?_"

Arthur opened his mouth to reply but was saved by more rumbling and angry Italian cursing before Romano growled at him, "_Sorry about Antonio, he's a dickwad_."

_Antonio_. Arthur clutched at the door frame as he listened to murmured Spanish and more angry Italian. "_Anyway, Kirkland, all I wanted to tell you was that you're not in any more trouble with us, so_-" In the background, someone shouted in German, and Romano broke off in his English sentence to yell back in Italian. Arthur began to wonder how many different nationalities and languages this mafia contained.

The German got louder and was quickly followed by the same rumbling that Arthur now understood as the phone changing hands forcefully. "_Hey, Arthur, buddy! 'Sup, man? Dude, I'm so glad I missed you way back when, I've never_ seen_ Frankie so happy as when you came back!_"

"…Who's Frankie?"

"_Oh - Frankie B, Francis, you know who I'm talking about!_" The new voice laughed gratingly, and Arthur decided to stop being surprised by these people.

"You know what? I don't want to know how you know Francis," he said, massaging his forehead. "Would you just- give the phone back to Romano?"

Arthur didn't have to see this guy - who had apparently been the sniper at the trial - to imagine the shit-eating grin on his face. "_Righto, prisspot._"

Arthur sputtered and yelled as the sniper handed the phone back to its rightful owner, who caught the tail end of Arthur's denial and replied, "_Yeah, I hate the bastard, too._"

Arthur frowned. "Has he ever tried to shoot _you_ and instead hit your boyfriend in the fucking back?"

Romano snorted, static blowing in Arthur's ear. "_Nah, I pay him too much for that_." A brief pause. "_I'm kind of sorry about that, by the way._"

"_Kind of?_"

"_Well, it was _my_ fucking boyfriend on trial!_" Romano snapped back. Arthur drummed his fingers on the door frame agitatedly.

"But he's there with you now."

"_Yeah, he is_." Arthur waited for the explanation. "_I know a guy who knows a guy_."

"I see."

"_Yeah_."

A few moments of silence. "So why did you call me?"

"_Fe-Veneziano made me do it!_" Arthur waited, not even bothering to ask who Veneziano was this time. "_We wanted to let you know that you're safe from us now. There isn't anyone alive that's gonna touch ya, Vargas or not. You got our protection_."

"Oh. Well, thank you." Arthur switched shoulders, leaning on the other side of the door frame. "Why?"

Romano coughed. "_You just take good fucking care of that Marshal of yours, got it? Oh, and Merry Christmas or something_." He hung up, and Arthur stared at his phone for a moment, then smiled at his old room and went back to the living room and his new family.

"Tomorrow - or, well, day after tomorrow," he said at the door, pointing at Katyusha and Matthew on the couch, who looked up at him curiously. "I am repainting that _fucking_ room and _banning_ the color peach from this house."

"_Language_, Arthur!" Al said from the floor, putting his hands over Zoe's ears. She wriggled out of his hold and bounded over to Arthur, who bent down and picked her up, hiding his smile in the loose skin of her shoulder and sitting down carefully on the floor next to Alfred, letting Al pull him into his side. "So who was on the phone, sugar?" Alfred asked. Arthur let Zoe lose to go poke her nose in baby Nathan's face again and tucked in closer.

"No one you need to worry about, darling," he said quietly, watching Katyusha and Matt juggle the dog and the baby with a smile. Al shrugged and kissed his temple sloppily, then scooped up Zoe as she trotted past and held her in his lap despite her struggling. Arthur laughed and scratched her ears, letting her teethe on his hand for a second before taking his hand back and wiping the dog slobber on Al's cheek, laughing as he fought away from it and wiped it off on his sleeve. He wrinkled his nose, then bent down to steal a kiss from Arthur, who smiled against his mouth.

He was happy, and in the end, that was all that mattered.

* * *

{A/N: And I cop out with an ending and leave it at that. Hope you enjoyed, guys. Glad you stuck with me this far! Like any other author, I adore reviews like a lap full of kittens.}


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